Behavior of Pesticide Prevention and Protection among Vegetable Famers in U-thong District, Suphanburi Province

Abstract

The objective of this survey research was to study predictability between predisposing, enabling, reinforcing factors and pesticide prevention and protection behaviors among vegetable farmers in U-Thong district. Of 119 vegetable farmers, who have vegetable farming in their main and supplementary career, were selected by simple random sampling or drawing names of the farmers registered in the U-thong district, Suphanburi province. The data were collected through the questionnaire developed by the researchers based on the PRECEDE framework (2005). The reliability of the questionnaire was between .71 - .73. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and stepwise multiple regression method.

The results revealed that, (1) in terms of socio-economic characteristics, the average number of workers working in the farmers was 2.89. Most of the farmers own their own land and have less than 5 Rais of plantation area. They use their own budget and gain profit less than 5,000 Baht per planting cycle. Most of the farmers have never trained for pesticide prevention and protection. (2) In terms of knowledge of pesticide prevention and protection, it was found that more than half of the farmers have moderate knowledge. (3) As for behavior, it was found that half of the farmers regularly protect their crop and prevent the pest from their plantation which was equal to those who do not applied this practice. (4) The stepwise multiple regression showed that profits gain from each planting cycle and knowledge of pest prevention had positive influence on prediction of the famers’ behavior relating to pesticide prevention and protection with coefficient (R2) equal 7.30 % with statistical significance (p<.05).