Investigation of Vegetable Growers Attitude towards Sources of Soil Pollution in Ray County
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Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate the attitude of vegetable growers towards sources of soil pollution in Ray County. The study consisted of all vegetable growers (N=700) in Ray county, located in Tehran Province, from which 70 vegetable growers were selected through random sampling technique. A planned questionnaire was used as the main instrument to collect data. The content validity of the questionnaire was approved through getting opinions of specialists and experts in the fields of Agricultural Extension and Education, Soil Science and Horticulture in the University College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Tehran. The reliability of the scale for measuring attitude of respondents was approved by using Cronbach Alpha coefficient, which was measured as 0.72. The findings indicated that all vegetable growers used to consume the polluted water for irrigation, and 38.6% of respondents had an intermediate attitude towards sources of soil pollution. A further finding of the study about sources of soil pollution was that the usage of factory sewage and agricultural machinery in the field had the first and the last priority in turn. According to stepwise regression analysis, 15% of the changes happened in the respondents' attitude towards sources of soil pollution, was due to the rate of implementing prevention strategies of soil pollution and the attitude towards prevention practices of soil pollution.
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