Study on attitudes and perceptions of organic and non-organic coconut growers towards organic coconut farming

Organic farming is gaining popularity all over the world, as it can diversify agricultural production systems towards attaining improved productivity, farm income and food, as well as environmental safety. Despite the global awareness of environmental degradation and climatic change that could result from the continuous practice of inorganic farming, many coconut growers in Sri Lanka are still producing coconut inorganically. Coconut growers' attitudes and perceptions are the major factors that lead to the adoption of organic farming. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the important influencing factors for adoption of organic coconut farming. The theoretical framework for the study was developed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. The data were collected from 102 organic growers and 76 non-organic growers. The results showed that non-organic growers did not have strong motivation to practice organic farming as they were of the view that yields are low, even though organic coconuts have a slightly higher price. Furthermore, they were reluctant to shift from chemical fertilizers and pesticides as they have been using them for a long period of time. Conversely, organic growers practice organic farming mainly because of the marketing assistance and inputs such as organic fertilizer and technical knowledge provided by the Serandipol Company, and also their favorable attitudes towards the environment. Knowledge about organic farming and extension worker contacts greatly influence motivation towards adopting organic farming. Therefore, participatory extension programs and better extension approaches such as farmer field schools could be used to change the attitude, knowledge and skills of growers towards organic farming. Further involvement of a third party such as the government, an NGO or a private company to assist organic growers would also increase the adoptability rate of organic farming.