The agricultural sector in the Jordan Valley plays an important role in the economic system and that the region is essentially Jordan's food basket. The adoption of sustainable agricultural practices is widely recognized as essential to ensure agricultural sustainability. This study analyzed factors influencing citrus farmer's adoption of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs) in the Northern Ghor of Jordan valley. The study used a quantitative approach. Simple random sampling was adopted to select 115 farmers in the study area. A multiple regression analysis was applied to identify factors influencing the sustainability of citrus farming practices. The study found that the largest proportion 44.4% of the citrus farmers had a fairly high adoption rate of SAPs while 13.0% of ones had high adoption of SAPs. In addition, the study revealed that age of farmer, Farm experience, primary education, and tertiary education were factors that affected farmers SAPs adoption. Policy recommendations are proposed to enhance the implementation of sustainable agriculture practices by the citrus farmers in the Northern Ghor of Jordan valley.
The effects of the "Green Revolution" technology on the environment and the issue of sustainability of agricultural growth received attention only recently (
Sustainable agriculture has been identified as the best approach that not only makes to better utilization of natural goods and services for human needs without harming the environment but also reduces the utilize of external inputs; where sustainable agriculture minimize the cost of purchasing inputs by employing farming techniques such as natural biological cycles and farmers skills and knowledge (
Sustainable agriculture contains a dynamic group of sustainable agricultural practices (SAPs). SAPs that are considered suitable for a specific area might be unsuitable to other areas due to the difference in circumstances (
In the Jordan Valley, there is a small group of wealthy agriculture who own large landholdings, but also there is a large group of farmers who live close to the poverty line of JD 32.6 per person per month (
Also, the weak linkage between production and consumption quantities leads to lower and fluctuating product prices. Hence, meliorating production and consumption practices toward sustainable agriculture has been considered as a new strategy to solve and address above mentioned problems in the Jordan Valley of Jordan especially in Northern Ghor of Jordan Valley.
One of the major goals for the Jordanian environmental sustainable development is to increase the awareness and realization of farmers on the issues of water savings and environmental and resource protection on the farm (
The paper, therefore, makes a practical contribution to address the gap in the literature and helps policymakers to put better Strategies and extension programs for the Jordan Valley. The current study was carried as a case study on citrus farmers due to citrus is the main crop in Northern Ghor of Jordan Valley. The objectives of the study were to measure citrus farmers' SAPs and determine the factors influencing citrus farmers' adoption of SAPs in Northern Ghor of Jordan Valley.
This study had two hypotheses:
1. The citrus farming practices are sustainable in the Northern Ghor of Jordan valley.
2. The socio-economic factors such as farmer and farm characteristics, exogenous factors influence the sustainability of citrus farming practices.
The Northern Ghor represents the area that lies below the Yarmouk River through the village of North Shounahand Addasiya to the village of Kreymeh, it is administratively affiliated to Irbid Governorate in the name of AL Aghwar AL Shamalyyah (Figure
The Northern Ghor of Jordan valley.
The study employed the quantitative approach. This approach was used because of its advantage in providing a numerical description of the studied phenomenon. In addition to being useful in measuring relationships and their strength between two variables (
Definitions and summary statistics of the variables used in the analysis are presented in Table
Definition of variables and descriptive statistics.
Variable name | Variables: definition and codes | Mean | Std. Dev. | |
---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||
Adoption of SAPs | SAPs adoption (=1 if farmer adopted SAPs; 0 otherwise) (min. = 6, max. = 14) | 10.6783 | 1.71959 | |
Sex of farmer | Sex of farmer (=1 if male; 0 otherwise) | 1.00 | .000 | |
Age of farmer | Age of farmer (years) | 56.44 | 13.860 | |
Marital status of the farmer | Marital status of the farmer (=1 if single; 0 otherwise) | .04 | .205 | |
Education level of farmer | ||||
No education | No education (=1 if attended; 0 otherwise) | .00 | .000 | |
primary education | Primary education (=1 if attended; 0 otherwise) | .14 | .348 | |
Basic education | Basic education (=1 if attended; 0 otherwise) | .37 | .486 | |
Secondary education | Secondary education (=1 if attended; 0 otherwise) | .30 | .462 | |
Tertiary education | Tertiary education (=1 if attended; 0 otherwise) | .18 | .388 | |
Farm experience | Farm experience (years) | 26.48 | 9.889 | |
Labor availability | Labor availability (=1 farmer used hired labor; 0 otherwise) | .90 | .295 | |
Employment | Employment (=1 if farmer work more than 200 days on the farm; 0 otherwise) | .86 | .348 | |
Farm income | Farm income (=1 if high income ; 0 otherwise) | .37 | .486 | |
Farm production | Farm production (ton/dunum) | 2.7783 | .42505 | |
Farm size | Farm size(dunum) | 28.26 | 10.337 | |
Land tenure | Land tenure status (=1 if owned; 0 otherwise) | .54 | .501 | |
Access to extension services | Access to extension services (=1 if yes; 0 otherwise) | .79 | .408 | |
Access to loan | Access to loans (=1 if yes; 0 otherwise) | .10 | .307 | |
Farmer group membership | Belong to farmer group (yes=1, 0 otherwise) | .03 | .184 | |
Distance to input market | Distance to input market (km) | 7.13 | 3.631 | |
Source of information | ||||
Reading newspaper | Reading newspaper (=1 if several times a month; 0 otherwise) | .00 | .000 | |
Listening to the radio | Listening to the radio (=1 if at least 5 h a week; 0 otherwise) | .02 | .131 | |
Watching TV | Watching TV (=1 if at least 5 h a week; 0 otherwise) | .01 | .093 | |
Participation in farming events | Participation in farming events (=1 if yes; 0 otherwise) | .12 | .328 |
After data gathering and editing, the analysis was performed by SPSS 23 software. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviations, and multiple regression were used to analyze the data.
Socio-economic characteristics information of the citrus farmers which includes gender, age, marital status, educational qualifications, land tenure, farm experience, and employment status of farmers were collected. This information was pertinent because it helped the authors to obtain some insights into the background of the farmers.
The results showed that all the farmers who participated in the study were male; their ages ranged from 23 to 83 and the mean age was 56.4 years. The majority of farmers were married with a percentage of 95.7%, while the percentage of singles was 4.3%. As far as the educational qualification is concerned, no illiterate farmers were found, and 37.4 % of farmers belonged to basic education; 13.9 % of farmers to primary education; 30.4% to secondary education, and 18.3% to tertiary education. As far as farmer's experience in farming activities is concerned, farm experience ranged from 5 to 45 and the mean was 26.4 years. The results also showed information on farmer's employment, where 86.1% of farmers work more than 200 days on the farm.
The Most commonly adopted SAPs among citrus farmers are presented in Figure
The Most commonly adopted SAPs among citrus farmers.
Table
Classification of citrus farmers based on SAPs.
Groups | Frequency | Percent | Cumulative percent |
---|---|---|---|
|
|||
Low | 14 | 12.2 | 12.2 |
Fairly low | 35 | 30.4 | 42.6 |
Fairly high | 51 | 44.4 | 87 |
High | 15 | 13.0 | 100 |
Total | 115 | 100 |
Figure
In terms of irrigation network design and installation appropriateness and the investigated irrigation efficiency, most of the tree farms are appropriate, where the farmers irrigate their trees using an open pipe network (GR 16mm) to fill mature single tree basin, and dripper Pipes (GR 16mm) to fill newly Planted trees basin. Farmers are forced to improve irrigation efficiency; since water, availability is limited and is controlled by the water user association that determines the schedule of each farm. Therefore, most farmers created lagoons (circular on-farm storage) with varying sizes. Moreover, most farmers watering trees during evening periods to reduce evaporation from the tree basins or evaporation from the lagoon itself. Besides, most respondents used high-yielding varieties with longer shelf life, are cultivated in nurseries in Northern Ghor. Also, farmers use indigenous knowledge in agricultural practices. Results showed that most farmers (93%) harvesting mature fruits. Immature fruits have low quality because of high water loss and mechanical damage. The maturity of fruits is an excellent condition for consumption (
Also, about 86.1% of citrus farmers implement the conservation tillage especially reduced tillage system; where the number of tillage processes is reduced by either elimination of one or more tillage processes from the conventional tillage program (
Biological control is an effective and environmentally friendly way to dominant insect pests and diseases through the work of natural control agents (
Regarding the mulches for weed control, no citrus farmers applied this technique. Mulches are fundamental to alleviate soil erosion and improve the water-holding capacity, maintain moisture in the soil facilitating infiltration, and reduce weed growth (
To expand the consumption market and improve product prices, it is necessary to quality check products every year, where this technique plays a significant role in improving consumer's perception and belief about products and improving product prices at the same time (
Finally, the popular trend in agricultural production is presently collaboration between farmers and enterprises in product consumption through contracts that help farmers to achieve more gains and profits through value-adding and decrease price fluctuation in the market (
To determine the factors influencing citrus farmer's SAPs adoption, a regression analysis (the Multiple Regression Model) with entre method was conducted. The regression model integrated all of the explanatory variables which had significant correlations with the SAPs adoption.
The citrus farmer's adoption towards selected SAPs index, which was specified according to their scores gained from the statements associated with 23 selected practices was considered as a dependent variable.
There were 23 explanatory variables, described in the research methodology section entered in the model, of which only 4 variables had a statistically significant influence at the 5% level on citrus farmer's SAPs adoption. As revealed in Table
Results of multiple regression analysis.
Variables | B | Beta | T-Statistics |
|
---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||
(Constant) | 12.266 | - | 7.311 | .000 |
Age of farmer | 0.041 | .332 | 2.021 | .046** |
Marital status of the farmer | 0.387 | .046 | .421 | .675 |
primary education | -1.315- | -.266- | -2.387- | .019** |
Secondary education | -.613- | -.165- | -1.430- | .156 |
Tertiary education | -1.399- | -.316- | -2.338- | .021** |
Farm experience | -.063- | -.363- | -2.151- | .034** |
Labor availability | -1.062- | -.182- | -1.623- | .108 |
Employment | -.842- | -.170- | -1.602- | .112 |
Farm income | 0.246 | .069 | .653 | .516 |
Farm production | -.065- | -.016- | -.144- | .885 |
Farm size | 0.008 | .051 | .485 | .629 |
Land tenure | 0.202 | .059 | .579 | .564 |
Access to extension services | 0.184 | .044 | .455 | .650 |
Access to loan | -.448- | -.080- | -.777- | .439 |
farmer group membership | -1.084- | -.116- | -1.019- | .311 |
Distance to input market | -.040- | -.085- | -.871- | .386 |
Listening to the radio | 0.486 | .037 | .373 | .710 |
Watching TV | -2.908- | -.158- | -1.682- | .596 |
Participation in farming events | 0.248 | .047 | .502 | .617 |
Note: ***significance at 1% level; **significance at 5% level; * significance at 10% level. N= 115; F= 1,514; R2= .232
Although there is agreement about the influence of age on the adoption and use of sustainable practices, there are disagreements as to which age group is most likely to adopt new agricultural practices. Empirical evidence from studies by (
Surprisingly, experience has a negative influence on the adoption of SAPs. Where β of experience was -.363. Results indicate that farmers who have long experience are generally less likely to adopt SAPs. It makes sense that the long experience would increase adoption of SAPs since it should enable farmers to improve their stock of farming knowledge, through leveraging on years of “learning by doing”; where more experienced farmers are possessed better knowledge of farming practices that could help improve yield and income earnings. However, though contrary to the findings of other studies, such as the study of
Besides, primary education and tertiary education were other important factors negatively influencing farmers' SAPs adoption with β = -0.266 and β = -0.316, respectively. For every standard deviation change in primary education and tertiary education farmers, SAPs adoption decreases by 0.266 and 0.316 standard deviation, respectively. In other meaning, farmers who had attended primary education and tertiary education were less likely to SAPs adoption and the variable was statically significant at 5%, p= 0.019, and
Concerning the educational attainment variable as clear discrimination in the adoption of SAPs. It is found that the present study results conflict with studies of (
The study pointed out that the largest proportion 44.4% of the citrus farmers was of fairly high adoption group of SAPs while 13.0% of ones belonged to the high adoption group of SAPs. In addition, the result of the regression analysis showed that 4 variables affecting farmers' SAPs adoption. These variables were the age of the farmer, farm experience, primary education, and tertiary education.
The study recommends that efforts to consolidate citrus farmers' SAPs adoption in Northern Ghor should be focus on environmental and economic benefits and give special attention to older farmers to exploit their skills and receptive to implementing SAPs. In addition, the government can encourage and guide farmers in implementing sustainable agriculture techniques and suitable inputs by providing premium and incentive payments to them. Moreover, the government should take deterrent penalties against farmers who using inappropriate and harmful applications such as using excessive chemicals pesticides and fertilizers, or who do not use appropriate applications such as not properly ravage of defective fruit.
Deep gratitude is expressed by the authors to Dr. Mwafak Abu Sahyoun, Director, Directorate of Agriculture of the Northern Jordan Valley, Jordan for his valuable guidance and also for providing information and facilities to carry out the study. The authors are indebted to Mohammed Al-Hourani, Director, Director of Information and Marketing Department and Khalil Mansi, warehouse warden, Directorate of Agriculture of the Northern Jordan Valley for participation the researchers in some farms visits. We would also like to show our gratitude to farmers for their support and cooperation during the field survey.
This research received no external funding.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article does not contain any studies that would require an ethical statement.