Pesticide Application Behaviors in Tomato Production of Farmers in Sakon Nakhon Province

Abstract

Tomato is one of the economic crops that is broadly grown and consumed. In the northeast, Sakon Nakhon province is the largest area for tomato growing but the problem from diseases and insects are still found in which the farmers cannot avoid using the pesticide to protect their crops. Unfortunately, the use of pesticide is highly increased.  This study aimed to explore the effective factors that changes the farmer’s behaviors and encourages more use of pesticide in tomato farms around Sakon Nakhon province. The sample group consisted of 186 farmers and the questionnaire was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics was applied and stepwise multiple regression was used for the hypothesis test.  The result show that, the effective factors on the farmer behavioral change encouraging more use of pesticide was statistically significant at 0.05 including the participation in agricultural activities and training program (positive) and tomato farming area (negative). Meanwhile, the factor correlated to the use of pesticide with statistical significance at 0.01 was the number of tomato generation (positive). Furthermore suggestion was that the responsible organizations should offer more of agricultural workshops to support farmer’s participation, and more of site-visit activities to meet the farmers at tomato farming area every year.