Smallholder Farmers' behaviour towards Safe use of Pesticides along the White Volta Basin in the Upper East Region of Ghana

The study examine the intention and behaviour of smallholder farmers towards safe pesticides use along the banks of the White Volta Basin in the Upper East region of Ghana using the Theory of Planned Behaviour by Ajzen (1991). Descriptive cross-sectional survey was used to sample 300 farmers from a population 1400 farmers from 12 communities in three districts (Bawku Municipal, Bawku West District and Binduri District) in the Upper East region. A questionnaire was developed with the TPB constructs as key variables as well as questions on the main sources of pesticides information used by the farmers, pesticides disposal methods adopted and the use PPE. Data was analyzed IBM SPSS and SmartPLS to compute the results of the study. The results show that farmers' intention and behaviour towards safe pesticides use is predicted by the TPB construct with coefficients of 29 and 38% respectively.