Assessing farmers’ intention towards conservation agriculture by using the Extended Theory of Planned Behavior

Conservation agriculture is considered as an agro-ecological approach to the sustainable and resource-saving crop production system. Previous studies on the adoption of agricultural innovation often consider socio-economic characteristics and overlook underlying psychological factors influencing farmers' behavioral intention. This study adopted three socio-psychological constructs, Attitude, Subjective Norm (SN), and Perceived Behavioral Control (PBC), which originated from the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and proposed two new constructs, Knowledge (K) and Perceived Climatic Threats of Conventional Farming (PCTCV). Using the Extended Theory of Planned Behavior Model (ETPBM), this study analyzed factors affecting the intention of farmers to continue Conservation Agriculture (CA) for the following year (2020) in three districts located in the northern part of Bangladesh. This research found evidence from the hierarchical regression analysis that variables of ETPBM could explain 7% more variation (change in R²) in intention than variables of TPB, while the socio-economic characteristics of farmers can explain only 0.5% more than the variables of ETPBM. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to determine and examine the extended theory and indicated that farmers' knowledge (K) had the highest total impact, while attitude had the highest direct impact on intention. The results indicated that factors including Attitude, SN, PBC, Knowledge (K), and PCTCV are positively significant when attempting to understand farmers' intentions to adopt CA. This study presented evidence about the effectiveness of ETPBM when assessing the farmers' intentions towards conservation farming. Based on these findings, we concluded that the combination of extension services for upgrading the level of knowledge concerning the importance of CA could significantly affect farmers’ attitudes on intention towards the application of CA.