Extending the theory of planned behavior for conserving agricultural land use in suburban areas

Abstract

In recent years, many cases of agricultural lands being converted to residential zones have occurred, resulting in damage to the environment. As agricultural land use conservation is highly dependent on farmers' decisions, the socio-psychological factors that affect farmers' behavior should be identified. This work aims to extend the theory of planned behavior to assess the factors that affect farmers' intention and behavior toward agricultural land use conservation. To evaluate this theory, it is applied to the Jouybar region in Mazandaran Province, Iran. This tourist-friendly region, situated near the Caspian Sea, has been experiencing changes in agricultural land use. The required data were collected by interviewing 200 farmers in the study area. The collected data were analyzed via structural equation modeling and the partial least squares method. The findings indicate that the extended theory of planned behavior (ETPB) can explain 69 % of the variance in farmers’ intentions and behaviors concerning agricultural land use conservation. Compared with the traditional TPB, the ETPB demonstrates an improvement of 13 % in predicting intentions and 15 % in predicting behaviors. On the basis of the results obtained from the proposed behavioral simulation model, several policies have been suggested to protect agricultural land use in this region. These policies aim to educate farmers on the importance of preserving their farmland, encourage them to maintain their traditional lifestyles, improve the marketing conditions for agricultural products, and provide financial support for purchasing agricultural tools, seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers.