Ecological Consequences of Nanotechnology in Agriculture: Researchers Perspective

Despite the broad applications of nanotechnologies in the present age, there are concerns about its ecological consequences. In this regard, the purpose of this study was to analyze ecological consequences of nanotechnology in the field of agriculture. The research method was descriptive, which was carried out by a survey technique for gathering data. The statistical population of the study included all researchers, experts, and faculty members of national agricultural research institutes and centers across Iran (N=190); out of them, 123 individuals were selected by using Krejcie and Morgan sample size Table along with stratified random sampling method with proportional assignment (n=123). The research instrument was a questionnaire whose face and content validity was confirmed by a number of faculty members of agricultural extension and education and experts in the field of nanotechnology. The reliability of ecological consequences of nanotechnology items was also obtained by a pilot study using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (α= 0.78). To identify the ecological consequences of nanotechnology by taking advantage of factor analysis, five factors entitled “social consequences”, “healthcare consequences”, “economic consequences”, “cultural consequences”, and “biological consequences” were extracted. As a whole, these factors explained 58.40 percent of the total variance of ecological consequences of nanotechnology in the field of agriculture.