Perception of the environment, professional conceptions and cultural behaviours of farmers in favor of sustainable development

In the framework of a public awareness campaign introducing new practices of fertilization in a group of farmers, the paper analyses the conditions of professional ecological behaviors in favor of sustainable development. Verbal associations and focalized interviews were set up in order to explore the links between the perception of the environment and pro-environmental behaviors, as well as the kind of relationships farmers built up with their environment. The result showed that the type of representation, the environmental awareness, and the perceived responsibility did not explain behavioral differences. The professional occupation was dominating among the farmers in the relationship with the anthroposystem. The representation of the farmers' own professional activity and its future was explicative of their relationships with their environment, and consequently of their behaviors. (c) 2006 Elsevier SAS. Tons droits reserves.