JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND EDUCATION RESEARCH
Year:2015 | Volume:8 | Issue:3 (31)|Papers Count:7

Pistachio production in Iran is an important source of revenue for the farmers and national economy.The traditional approach to the management of pistachio production causes this product becomes uneconomical in the long term. Precision farming is a farm management system that based on information and technology in order to determination, analysis and management of changes for profitability, stability and Optimized protection of farm. The purpose of this study is feasibility of using precision agriculture in pistachio production. That 52 experts were selected by use of simple random sampling and data were collected through questionnaires in 1391 and has been analyzed by SPSS software. The results showed that the highest priority applications of precision agriculture technology, include the tillage, Soil Texture Map, trees yield maps and etc. technologies like variable rate and soil sampling have a significant relationship with dependent variable at %1 level. The highest priority of underlying factors include seminars, workshops and conferences, providing funding and research funding, implementation of a trial precision farming project, owning scientific management at orchards and expansion of Cooperative Productions. Also education, economic and technical factors had significant relationship at 1%with dependent variable.

The purpose of this descriptive- correlational study was to investigate effective factors on the entrepreneurship mentality of students. Target population consist all agricultural high school students in Zanjan Province. Population for this study included all the students who study in these schools (N= 412), which 145 of them was selected using proportional Stratified random sampling method and based on Cochran sampling formula. The validity of research questionnaire verified by a panel of related experts and by conducting a pretest study and calculating Cronbach alpha coefficient higher than 0.7 for different sections its reliability was obtained. The data were analyzed using SPSS18/win software. The findings indicated that majority of students (52.4%) had high level of entrepreneurial mentality. T test revealed that the entrepreneurship mentality of urban living students were higher than rural living one and Karo-Danesh (vocational education) students had higher level of entrepreneurship mentality in comparison with Fanni-Herfei (technical profession) students. There were positive and meaningful correlation between entrepreneurship mentality with communication skill, optimism, selfesteem, childhood living condition and job experience of students. Multiple regression analysis revealed that two variables of communication skill and job experience explained 20 percent of entrepreneurship mentality variance.

Recently, the role of stockmen’s behavior in animal welfare and productivity of dairy cattle has received more acknowledged by researchers. Without any doubt, they have pivotal effects on welfare and productivity of animal. Therefore, understanding stockmen’s intention and behavior and recognizing the factors affected them is of great importance. One way to understanding and studying human behavior is application of the psychology and social-psychological model. The purpose of this study was to compare the theory of planned behavior with social cognitive theory to predicting stockmen’s intention and behavior. The population of interest consisted of stockmen in Sirjan district, Kerman Province. The study sample consisted of 252 persons selected through a multistage, quota- random and stratified sampling method. After confirming the reliability and validity of the instrument, then, data was collected. The results of this study showed that the theory of planned behavior was able to predict 35 percent of stockmen’s intention as well as 38 percent of stockmen’s behavior, while at the same time the prediction power of social cognitive theory was lower.

The main purpose of this study was challenges of the application of integrated pest management (IPM), technologies among the gardeners of farmers’ field school approach in the Paveh Township.This is a descriptive study with the survey method. The population of who participated in this study was (N=130), who were selected through. The research tool was a questionnaire which its content validity by a panel of experts to promote agricultural education and studied, modified and approved.Reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) with pre-test questionnaire that people were not selected in the sample was 87.0.The study findings showed that the perception of farmers’ challenges to implementing financial and infrastructural, technical and managerial, interpersonal and motivational issues, features, innovation, risk and uncertainty and lack of information and knowledge are gardeners.The results can be further improved and accelerated programs (IPM/ FFS) to assist planners and policy makers in the sector.

The main objective of this study was to evaluate the skills management required for the application of precision farming in the process of sustainable agricultural development in West Azerbaijan Province.This research in terms of purpose is an applied research and in terms of methodology is part of descriptive survey research. The statistical population of this research were the experts and officials of mechanization of West Azerbaijan Province that due to the limited number of population (n=86) a Census method used to collect the data. The survey instrument was a questionnaire which its validity confirmed by executive experts. Reliability of the questionnaire calculated with using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, which was equal to 0.77. Based on the results of the factor analysis showed that seven factors (accounting skills; agronomic skills; diagnostic skills of variability, information seeking skills, setting goals and decision-making skills, economic skills in applying of agricultural machinery and technical skills in applying of agricultural machinery) in total, 61.27 percent of variance have been explained the management skills necessary for precision farming in the process of sustainable agriculture developing. Among them, accounting skills with explanation 23.91 percent of total variance had a greater role.

In this study by using farmers’ experiences of Alamout region, factors influencing on their participation to use soil and water conservation practices, was investigated. In this regard a Multinomial Logit (MNL) model was used. To collecting the required data a sample number of 138 people of the statistical population 2160 farmers of Shahrood Basin was selected by using the simple random sampling and Cochran formula. Research instrument was a questionnaire that its’ validity approved by the panel of experts and its reliability by Cronbach’s alpha were determined. The results showed that only 42.7 percent of farmers in this area are using protective operations in moderate level.The results also, indicated that, knowledge of conservation practices, slope of lands, the annual gross income, receiving grants and participation in promotional classes have positive and meaningful effects. Age and employment in non-agricultural sector showed negative and meaningful effects on probability of farmers’ participation in using of soil and water conservation practices. Also, Multinomial Logit model in high confidence level with Likelihood Ratio test statistics 30.57 for mechanical practices and 19.68 for non-mechanical practices was significant.