Farmers’ Approaches to Good Agricultural Practices and Adoption and Application Levels of Agricultural Innovations in Çanakkale Province

Abstract

Farmers’ Approaches to Good Agricultural Practices and Adoption and Application Levels of Agricultural Innovations in Çanakkale Province Başak Aydın1*, Duygu Aktürk21Atatürk Soil Water and Agricultural Meteorology Research Institute, Kırklareli, Turkey 2Çanakkale 18 Mart University Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics, Çanakkale, Turkey [*] ABSTRACT P In this study, approaches of the farmers’ to good agricultural practices and agricultural innovations in Çanakkale province was evaluated. Survey studies were conducted with 55 farmers applying good agricultural practices in Çanakkale. The same survey was also conducted with the same number of farmers who did not apply good agricultural practices and total of 110 surveys were conducted. A great majority of the farmers applying good agricultural practices (87.27%) were determined as high level innovators and this ratio was found as 34.55% for the farmers not applying good agricultural practices. As a result of the chi square test which was done in order to determine the difference between the farmers applying and not applying good agricultural practices according to the innovativeness level statistically, it was determined that the difference between the farmers was statistically significant in 1% significance level. In the study, 47.27%, 40%, 34.55%, 32.73%, 25.45% and 10.91% of the farmers stated that they applied good agricultural practices for the security of the workers, obtaining qualified crop, receiving subsidy, less damage to the environment, obtaining more crop and being controlled in each stage respectively. The farmers applying good agricultural practices stated that marketing guarantee must be given to good agriculture crops and subsidy amount for good agricultural practices must be increased. Besides, they stated that studies for informing the farmers about good agricultural practices can be beneficial. Key words: Good agricultural practices, agricultural innovation, Çanakkale [*] Corresponding author: basakaydin_1974@yahoo.com