Farmers awareness on the importance of organic farming as sustainable agriculture in the Qassim region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Organic agriculture has been identified as an important part of the sustainable agriculture. However, it has been assumed that farmers are not aware the importance of organic agriculture and it is important to conduct research on farmers' perceptions towards this important aspect. This study aimed to identify the degree of awareness of the farmers on the importance of organic farming as the part of sustainable agricultural development in Qassim, Saudi Arabia. The study explored the nature of the relationship between the independent variables and the degree of awareness of the respondents as the dependent variable. This study was conducted on the sample of (193) farmers (participants) representing all farmers of the study area. The preliminary data were collected by using the questionnaire against the personal interviews. Data were subjected to the statistical analysis and to make the data more meaningful, percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviation, simple correlation coefficient of Pearson, regression (stepwise) were used. The study revealed that about three-quarters (75.6%) of the farmers/ respondents were with low to medium perception on the importance of organic farming. There was a positive correlation between respondents' perception towards organic farming as the dependent variable and factors like: basic profession, the degree of satisfaction with the farm work and training at the (0.01) significance level. However, a negative relationship was found for land holding and college education at the (0.05) significance level. The main reasons respondents were not practicing organic farming include: no guarantee for the protection of farms from the exploitation of the big merchants (68.9%), oversight of the violations of standards and legislations and prevailing of poor rules to hold violators accountable (68%), lack of qualified and skilled labor on organic farming and practices (63.9%), and weak consumer demand for organic products (27%).