Tropentag 2020, September 9 - 11, virtual conference, Germany "Food and nutrition security and its resilience to global crises"

The Influence of Psychological and Socioeconomic Factors on Farmers Dealing with COVID-19

¹Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Iran
²University of Tabriz, Dept. of Extension and Rural Development, Iran
³Leibniz Centre for Agric. Landscape Res. (ZALF), Sustainable Land Use in Developing Countries (SusLAND), Germany

Abstract

The pandemic of coronavirus is a rapidly growing concern around the world. Through educational programs, policymakers are trying to change farmers' attitudes toward adaptation to the pandemic. The effectiveness of these educational activities depends on designing and conducting research related to factors that change behaviour in order to adapt to corona. While the technological, infrastructure, and educational focus has been usually paid to farmers’ behaviour, much less attention has been given to psycho-social factors which may also influence farmers’ behaviour. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the psychological and socioeconomic factors influencing the behaviour of adaptation to COVID-19. To achieve this goal, psychosocial structures (perceived happiness, perceived well-being, and perceived stress) and demographic characteristics (age, number of family members, agricultural and non-crop income, reserve rate, land size, and number of livestock) were identified as predictors. The statistical population of this study are farmers in southern Iran. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire based survey that it’s validity and reliability were confirmed. The results of the regression show that socioeconomic and psychological variables can explain 35% of the changes in behaviour related to COVID-19. The results of the study also show that well-being is the most important predictor of adaptive behaviour. The results of the present study can help planners and policymakers to identify ways to improve adaptive behaviour and thereby to increase the effectiveness of educational activities in coping with severe shocks, such as the current corona pandemic. The results of this study also highlight the importance of considering social psychological measures and demographic characteristics in the development and evaluation of educational programs to stimulate adaptive behaviour.

Keywords: Adaptive behaviour, COVID-19, happiness, stress, subjective well"=being

Contact Address: Masoud Yazdanpanah, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Mollasani, 744581 Ahvaz, Iran, e-mail: masoudyazdangmail.com