Document Type : Original Article
Subjects
The agricultural sector plays a key role in the economy of societies according to their climate, and drought is one of the major instabilities of this sector. Water is one of the main factors limiting the development of agriculture, especially in hot and dry lands. Currently, most of Iran's provinces are exposed to severe water shortages. Considering the limited water resources, the importance of managing water in optimal use is unavoidable. Based on this, according to the climatic conditions of the country, especially consecutive droughts in recent years and lack of water, the cultivation of some products is not economical in terms of production and income, and farmers must choose to cultivate other plants. After products such as pistachios, dates, and citrus fruits, saffron has a special place in Iran's exports, and today, it is known as a motivation for rural development, increasing household cash income and improving welfare among poor communities. This plant is one of the most efficient agricultural products in terms of water consumption, and it is a low-expectation plant in terms of the need for nutrients. It can be acknowledged that the adoption and development of the cultivation of saffron are important factors in increasing income and employment, reducing poverty, and preventing the migration of people to many villages that accept saffron planting. Sirjan County is one of the important areas of pistachio production in Kerman province, which has dried up a lot of orchards in recent years due to drought and water shortage crisis. In the face of such conditions, saffron cultivation has been introduced and promoted as an alternative cultivation by Jihad Keshavarzi according to the resistance economy policies in some villages of this city that have a favourable environment for saffron cultivation. In this study, various factors that can affect the acceptance of saffron cultivation were considered. This research helps to identify and strengthen these factors to encourage other farmers in the right direction to change the cultivation pattern from crops with higher water consumption and low efficiency to crops with minimal water consumption and high income. This study was conducted for the first time in Sirjan.
The current research is applied in a descriptive-inferential type. The necessary statistics and information were collected through the field survey method using questionnaires and interviews with farmers and specialists. The statistical population consists of the farmers in the selected villages of Hamashahr, Balvard, and Pariz, which are the main areas of saffron cultivation in Sirjan County. Using Cochran's formula, the number of 165 farmers was determined as a sample. Then, the farmers were divided into two groups, accepting and not accepting saffron cultivation, and questionnaires were randomly distributed in each group proportional to the population of farmers in that village. To investigate issues, in which the dependent variable is qualitative and expresses how people make decisions, probability models are defined, which are known as two-choice models. The most popular models in such situations are Probit and Logit. Some statistics are used to choose the appropriate model from these two models. In this study, the Logit model was chosen according to these statistics, which is preferable to the Probit model. In addition, the use of this model is more general. Because the opinions and suggestions of experts were used in the present study to design the questionnaire, this questionnaire is valid. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was also used to check its reliability.
To estimate the coefficients affecting the adoption of saffron cultivation, the factors that can influence the farmers' decision were entered into the model. Using the selection criteria, the superiority of the Logit model over the Probit model was proved. Then, the regression coefficients were extracted using the Maximum Likelihood method. By estimating the model, the value of McFadden's statistic was determined to be 0.87. According to the findings, the variables of land ownership type, marketing factor, climate factor, input factor, communication channels factor, and number of participants in promotional classes had a positive effect, and the number of land plots had a negative effect on the acceptance of saffron cultivation. Results show that climatic, market, input, and communication channel factors greatly impacted the acceptance of saffron cultivation in the study areas.
Since the most important reason for farmers to change their cultivation pattern is the lack of water, it is necessary to protect existing water resources and increase the efficiency of water used in agriculture, including constructing new irrigation systems. Because most farmers do not have enough capital resources to use and set up new irrigation systems, it is suggested that they be assigned easy loans with long repayment terms and supervision by the government. Due to the dependence of this product on climatic conditions, it is necessary to identify and introduce the potential cultivation areas by Jihad Agriculture experts so that farmers can decide to accept the cultivation of this product with more confidence. Holding training classes, informing about the time of holding classes, encouraging farmers to participate in training and promotion classes, providing means of transportation, and providing practical and useful lessons to farmers by specialists should be among the requirements of agricultural jihad programs. One of the problems farmers face in the region is the large number of plots and the smallness of the land, which, as expected in this research, negatively affects the acceptance of saffron cultivation. According to the data, many farmers in the region are not willing to participate in the land consolidation plan. The government must implement policies to encourage farmers to accept the land consolidation plan or to prevent land fragmentation by establishing and amending the governing laws.
The manuscript did not receive a grant from any organization.
The author declares that she has no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The author declares no conflict of interest.
