Abstract
Area wide management (AWM) is a coordinated strategy designed to achieve effective and longer-lasting suppression of mobile insect pests, involving groups of commercial growers working together and/or with local communities to achieve control across multiple host areas. In this study, we hypothesised that intentions to carry out AWM for the control of fruit fly would be predicted by subjective knowledge of insect pests, along with protection motivation factors (perceived pest threat severity, threat vulnerability, self-efficacy, AWM response efficacy and response costs). Fruit and vegetable growers (n = 131) and general public (n = 896) living in fruit-growing regions completed a large-scale telephone survey, measuring perceptions and intentions to implement area wide management. Regression analyses tested the relationship between intention, protection motivation factors and subjective knowledge, F(8, 1018) = 48.52, p < .001, yielding a statistically significant predictive model accounting for approximately 30% of behavioural variance in intention. Self-efficacy, threat severity, response efficacy and threat vulnerability were the most influential predictors of intention. Subjective knowledge was not a strong predictor, but results did clarify that explicit knowledge of fruit fly controls, rather than tacit knowledge of fruit fly itself, was a significant predictor of intention. Understanding motivational drivers for farmer and community engagement in pest management can not only help predict uptake of novel practices, but also allude to how individual farmers and communities are articulating a pest problem. The importance of explanatory factors such as threat appraisal and self-efficacy in framing management activities can help to better target behavioural incentives.
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Credit: Mia Tam
Source: Andy Hulthen, CSIRO
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The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Cronbach’s alpha was used to calculate scale reliability (i.e. internal consistency between each of the scale items) for each of the multi-item sub-scales. An α value of over .60 is generally acceptable as a representation of a valid scale (Howell 2002).
Calculations of effect sizes (eta-squared) provide an indication of the magnitude of the difference between the two groups. Cohen (1988) suggest the following interpretations for eta-squared: .2 = ‘small’, .5 = ‘medium’, and .8 = ‘large’, effect sizes.
Note that ‘group’ was retained as an individual variable, however, because it was a variable of significance in our hypotheses.
Cohen (1992) states that standardised beta weights should be benchmarked as: ‘weak’ = .1, ‘moderate’ = .3 and ‘strong’ = .5.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank participants from our target regions who took the time to share their views on this important topic. We would also like to acknowledge colleagues who reviewed this manuscript prior to submission, particularly Dr. Penny Measham.
Funding
The Adaptive Area Wide Management of Qfly using SIT project is being delivered by Hort Innovation in partnership with CSIRO and is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture & Water Resources as part of its Rural R&D for Profit program. This project forms part of the SIP plus program.
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This research was conducted in accordance with CSIRO’s Human Research Ethics guidelines and the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. The project received Human Research Ethics approval. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Communicated by M. Jonsson.
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Mankad, A., Loechel, B. Perceived competence, threat severity and response efficacy: key drivers of intention for area wide management. J Pest Sci 93, 929–939 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-020-01225-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-020-01225-7