Factors affecting urban dwellers to practice urban agriculture

Urban farming is becoming an important activity among the urban dwellers in most developing countries. It is not only to ensure full utilization of the available space for agriculture, but also for sustaining the need of food among the urban dwellers. Since the related campaign and concept of urban agriculture are quite new in Malaysia, the objective of this study is to investigate the intention of urban dwellers towards practicing urban agriculture especially among the strata households. A multistage sampling technique involving stratified sampling was used to select the respondents. A face-to-face interview was carried out using structured questionnaires distributed to 400 respondents. The descriptive analysis, factor analysis, and binary logistic analysis were applied to analyze the data. The results of the study show that respondents have positive perceptions on urban agriculture and most of them have intentions to practice urban agriculture in the future. Factor analysis generated four latent factors that prescribe respondents intention to practice urban agriculture. These factors were positive attitude towards urban agriculture concept, confidence in practicing urban agriculture, societal environment and role model influences. A binary logistic analysis model was used to determine the socio demographic characteristics, and the extracted factors from factor analysis influenced the urban dwellers to practice urban agriculture. The results indicate that age, gender, educational level, and household size with the four latent factors mentioned previously were the likely factors that will influence urban dwellers to have intention to practice urban agriculture