Farmers’ sustainable agriculture perception in Turkey: The case of Mersin province

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to measure farmers’ sustainable agriculture perception and its determinants in Turkey based on a case study in Mersin Province. The data were collected from randomly selected 239 farmers in June 2017. The data set were gathered by using a structured questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.946. According to the result, farmers had favorable perception in issues related to sustainable agricultural practices such as protection of agricultural resources, negative effects of agrochemicals on human health and the environment, input application, crop rotation, minimum tillage etc. In addition, the study revealed that agricultural programs on TV and radio, credit use and cooperative partnership were factors that affected farmers’ sustainable agriculture perceptions. The study investigated farmers’ sustainable agriculture perception, not predict whether farmers will adopt sustainable agriculture practices or whether they did them. Hence, it is necessary that further research should be conducted to find out whether farmers are likely to do so or whether really they did them.

Keywords

• perception
• sustainable agriculture
• turkey