The adoption of IPM practices by small scale producers: the case of greenhouse tomato growers in Turkey

In most competitive fresh fruit and vegetables chains, growers are faced with the need to comply with the requirements of increasingly safety demanding customers. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices have become a true solution for small scale growers that could not afford the cost of a GAP certificate. While literature on farmer adoption of IPM practices focuses on farmer and farm characteristics, only a few authors underline the importance of technology, marketing and pesticides safety control. Moreover, only a few papers have studied IPM adoption in developing or emerging countries. Our paper aims to fill this gap by focusing on Turkey, an emerging country with dominant small scale growers, where diffusion of IPM is still in its infancy. It also takes into account factors that go beyond the farmers and farm characteristics that are usually addressed by literature. 186 tomato growers have been surveyed in the province of Antalya, a region of Turkey supplying 85% of the national production of tomato grown under greenhouse. IPM adoption has been represented by two indicators : a counter of the eleven most salient IPM practices and a three-tier level of intensity of adoption (high, medium, low). Our analysis confirms most of our predictions and highlights the role of innovative factors such as technology, farming system characteristics, marketing and safety control.