Conversion to organic farming: a dynamic opportunity for Pakistani smallholders of fresh fruit

Ali Abid,Shang Jie

doi:10.1590/0103-8478cr20200942

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Exporting the organic fresh fruit (FF) to Europe and America could be regarded as great opportunity for smallholders and suppliers of Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan. Yet, the global organic farmland and the number of organic producers are continued to grow. To date, little is known about the behavior of Pakistani farmers towards organic fresh fruit production. This study examined the factors that influence the decision-making of fresh fruit smallholders concerning the conversion to organic farming (COF). This study uses Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict the behavior of Pakistani smallholders of fresh fruit. Path analysis examined the utility of the extended version of the TPB model to anticipate 277 small-scale farmers’ behavioral intentions towards the adoption of organic farming (AOF) and their prospect of converting their farm to organic produce within the next three years. The present study reported that the smallholders’ attitude (ATT), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavior control (PBC), and farmer’s group participation (FGP) were positively correlated with farmer’s intention to adopt organic farming, while group participation of farmers has significant correlation with their behavior regarding production of organic fruits. The present study justifies using the model of farmers’ group participation in policies that deliberately cheer up smallholders of fresh fruit to adopt organic farming, to raise farm incomes and to alleviate poverty.

Highlights

Organic farming is at the forefront of the sustainable agriculture movement (HOME et al, 2018) and has captured growing attention all over the world (ISSA & HAMM, 2017; JOUZI et al, 2017; KHANAL; MISHRA & HONEY, 2018)
This survey demonstrated that the sample of farmers is an educated one, since 49.8% were graduated from university and college, while 39.4 % have high and middle school level education
The present study examined the factors that influence the decision-making of fresh fruit smallholders concerning the conversion to organic farming (COF) with an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) and partial least square (PLS) structural equation modelling

Summary

Introduction

Organic farming is at the forefront of the sustainable agriculture movement (HOME et al, 2018) and has captured growing attention all over the world (ISSA & HAMM, 2017; JOUZI et al, 2017; KHANAL; MISHRA & HONEY, 2018). A quarter of the world’s organic farmland and more than 87 percent of the producers were reported to come from the developing countries. The increase of organic farmland in some developing nations has been driven primarily by the rising exports of organic foods to developed countries, such as the United States of America and the European Union The sales of organic food totaled $97 billion in 2017, compared to $18 billion in 2000, growing more than fivefold over the past 17 years (WILLER & LERNOUD, 2019). The organic food production has lagged due to demand and supply issues, there are likely to be more producers contributing to the robust industrial growth (ARUMUGAM et al, 2018)

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