Abstract

Organic farming is a holistic and sustainable food production system which can be considered as an alternative to conventional agriculture in Iran. Each policy to diffusion of organic farming leads to demands on knowledge of agricultural professionals. This is therefore important to understand professionals’ knowledge on organic farming and to identify the key factors influencing it. The main purpose of this research was to investigate factors influencing agricultural professionals’ knowledge on organic farming. A survey was conducted among agricultural professionals in the Jihad-e-Keshavarzi Organization of two southern provinces in Iran (Khuzestan and Fars), using stratified random sampling for selection of sample. The results showed that age and access to information on agriculture and environment were two important variables that had a positive and direct effect on the organic knowledge. Other variables such as social norms about organic farming via health attitude, nutrient attitude and general attitude towards environment have weak indirect effects on knowledge of organic farming.

Key words: Organic farming, knowledge, environment, Iran.