Identifying the Determinants of Jiroft Farmers' Willingness to Adoption Levels of Crop Pattern Based on Water Resources

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 1. Department of Agricultural Management and Development, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

2 Department of Agricultural Management and Development, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Agricultural Management and Development, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

4 Department of Arid and Mountainous Regions Reclamation, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

So far, studies have paid less attention to the farmer’s intention in developing a water-based crop pattern, so this article examines the relationship between the characteristics of 393 active farmers in the Jiroft plain and their willingness to accept a water-based crop pattern. Farmers were surveyed about the level of willingness to accept the proposed cropping pattern, demographic characteristics, socio-economic factors and institutional characteristics using a questionnaire with open and closed questions in the 2020 crop year. In order to achieve the research objectives, a stratified logit model was used in which the dependent variable of the research (willingness to accept the crop pattern appropriate to water resources) was ranked in five categories including 0: unwillingness to accept; 1: low acceptance; 2: willingness to moderate acceptance; 3: willingness to accept too much and 4: willingness to accept too much. The results showed that 62% of respondents tended to accept below average and only 7.9% of farmers tended to accept too much. The results showed that the variables of age, literacy level, average monthly income, personal ownership of land, access to credit and membership in farmers 'social institutions had a positive and significant effect on farmers' willingness to accept and non-payment of water input by farmers had the opposite effect. Findings showed that a variety of variables may explain the willingness of farmers to develop protective behaviors for water resources that should be considered.

Keywords

Extended Abstract

Objectives

Crop pattern according to the type of products appropriate to the climatic conditions of each province ensures the sustainability of agricultural production and food security, and this leads to the correct and rational use of capabilities and suitability of each region and ultimately will increase the productivity and sustainability of natural resources. However, in order to achieve sustainable management of water resources, the implementation of this strategy subjected to the cooperation and acceptance of farmers as the target community. Like any new technology, this strategy will certainly face limitations and barriers from farmers, so study incentives and deterrents to farmers' willingness to accept will be an important step towards developing agricultural crops in line with water resources in different regions. Therefore, this study was conducted by the main purpose of to investigate the factors affecting the willingness to adoption of crop pattern based on water resources by farmers in Jiroft plain.

 

Methods

In this research, an ordered logit model has been used to investigate the farmers' willingness to adoption for the application of crop pattern based on water resources. this study was conducted based on a quantitative research approach and a survey method which has been done on primary data.  required data were collected by face-to-face interview using a questionnaire containing a number of open and closed questions. The questionnaire covered a wide range of issues including information on individual, household, and socio-economic background. Agricultural systems and, their own household, and their willingness to adoption were also included. Sample size was determined 388 using Krejcie & Morgan sample size table. To do so, 393 questionnaires were collected by stratified random sampling method among farmers who are active in 2020 growing season. The farmers' willingness to adoption the proposed crop pattern measures is considered as a dependent variable, which was measured using a 5 ordered scale including “0: unwilling, 1: low willing to adoption, 2: Moderate willing to adoption, 3: Much willingness to adoption and 4: Too much willingness to adoption”. Independent variable was consisted of Age, work experience, gender, literacy level, monthly income, land ownership, membership in institutions, access to government credit, non-payment for water.

 

Results

The Wald s’ statistic confirms the significance of the model at the level of one percent probability and strongly rejects the assumption that all explanatory variables in the model are equal to zero. Also, the value of "goodness of fit " the estimated model (49%) shows the relatively high ability of the model to predict and explain the behaviour of the dependent variable.

The survey results have shown that about 36/9 per cent of the farmers in Jiroft Plain would be unwilling to adoption. Also, 25/2 percent of respondents would be low willing to adopt about proposed crop pattern, while about 14/2 percent of them would be willing to adopt at a moderate level for crop pattern based on water resource, just 7/9 percent of our sample size had too much willing to adopt the new crop pattern in their fields. Results have revealed that factors like farmers age, monthly income, literacy level significantly increase their willingness to adoption for crop pattern based on water resources. Furthermore, farmers those who had access to credits and had land ownership would be willing to adopt the proposed crop pattern. also, the negative and significant effect of no payment for water has been acknowledged by results.  Based on the marginal effect of the variables, it was found that the membership in entities and access to credit had the greatest impact on increasing the willingness to accept farmers, while non-payment for water input had the greatest impact on unwillingness to accept farmers.

 

Discussion

The study assessed the factors that have an association with the willingness of farmers to adopt a crop pattern based on water resources in the Jiroft plain of Iran. Empirical results from the Ordered Logit regression model shows that personal and demographic factors such as age and literacy level, institutional factor such as access to credit services, membership in entities, socio-economic factor such as monthly income and land ownership, as well as no payment for water were identified to have an association with the willingness of farmers to adopt the proposed crop pattern in this region by farmers. The study suggests that any further research in the study area on the adoption of the proposed crop pattern should acknowledge the mixture of personal and demographic, institutional, socioeconomic factors. furthermore, it would be useful if psychological factor will be studied in future studies. According to the results, the following measures can be effective on the adoption of new crop pattern by farmers in Jiroft plain:

 1) Access to financial support for farmers with lower income and wealth levels should be considered by policymakers.

 2) Attention to modify the water pricing system in Jiroft plain in order to access optimizing water productivity and making incentives in farmers to invest in new crop pattern.

3) A serious review of the extension and training programs of farmers in the Jihad Agricultural Organization of the region should be done in order to encourage farmers to accept the crop pattern.

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Iranian Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development Research
Volume 54, Issue 3
September 2023
Pages 737-752

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