Entendendo a intenção de pequenos agricultores rurais em diversificar a produção por meio da piscicultura

Abstract

The present study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TCP) to analyze the psychological factors that influence the intention of small farmers to adopt fish farming in their properties as a way of rural diversification. The TBP presupposes that intention is determined by three psychological constructs: attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. These three psychological constructs are derived from behavioral, normative, and control beliefs, respectively. In addition to these constructs, the construct "own identity" was added to evaluate its influence on intention. For the data collection, questionnaires were applied through interviews with 184 small farmers from the Itamarati settlement. We used the spearman correlation to identify the correlation between the constructs with the Intention. The results showed that the farmers' intention to adopt fish farming as a way of rural diversification, was influenced by the four constructs. We also verified that the sociodemographic characteristics of the sample, did not present a significant correlation with intention. In this study, we measured the attitude by the positive or negative evaluation of small farmers to adopt fish farming; The subjective norms, by the perception on the social pressure suffered to adopt the fish farming; The perceived behavioral control, by the perception about their own capability to adhere to the fish farming and the own identity by the involvement of the farmer in the activity. Four behavioral beliefs were identified as forming the attitude. Eight normative beliefs formed the social norms construct. And five behavioral beliefs formed the perceived behavioral control construct. Thus, the majority of the interviewed small farmers, present average intention in adopting the fish farming. In this way, it is necessary for producers to receive incentives to have access to more resources that can boost the individual's intention towards diversification through fish farming.