Farmers’ Perceptions, Insight Behavior and Communication Strategies for Rice Straw and Stubble Management in Thailand

Abstract

The adoption of rice straw and stubble management approaches can be affected by various factors. To understand the psychological factors influencing Thai farmers’ adoption of rice straw and stubble management approaches, three integrated behavioral theories were employed: the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) and the Health Belief Model (HBM). Then, a practical communication framework was synthesized and proposed to promote rice straw utilization for social-ecological benefits to achieve more sustainable agricultural production. Through a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews with 240 local farmers, a statistical analysis was performed employing cross-tab, stepwise multiple linear regression, one-way ANOVA and descriptive content analysis using QDA lite miner software. The key results clearly showed that perceived pro-environmental personal norms, perceived cues to rice straw utilization, perceived behavioral control, perceived severity of rice straw burning, perceived ascription of responsibility, and the perceived benefits of rice straw utilization were significantly negatively influenced by burning, and that there was a significantly negative difference to non-burning approaches. Meanwhile, cost savings as perceived benefits of the current option of burning showed a significantly positive difference when compared with incorporation and free-duck grazing options. In communication strategies to promote rice straw utilization for achieving sustainable agriculture, key messages should highlight the clear steps of rice straw utilization, as well as the costs and benefits of each option in terms of economic, health, environmental and social perspectives. Moreover, messages designed to promote action knowledge and self-efficacy at the group level, to promote perceived responsibility via self-awareness and self-commitment, and convenient channels of communication to the farmers can help to achieve more effective non-burning rice straw and stubble management.