JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND EDUCATION RESEARCH
Year:2011 | Volume:3 | Issue:4|Papers Count:11

The current study aimed at understanding the factors influencing the technological innovation in rural food industries of Tehran. Questionnaires were administered using face-to-face method and 111 managers in 60 active firms were interviewed. Findings showed a positive significant relationship between technological innovation and two other types of innovation in production and process. Firm age and competitors' pressure had positive significant influence on radical technological innovation, while R&D and training has had negative impact on radical technological innovation. Incremental Technological innovation was affected by firms' capacity for production, internal communication and access to information positively and fixed capital negatively.

The purpose of this descriptive-correlation research was to determine and analyze the impact of experience and interest of participants in the plant clinics on their knowledge and skill about clean environment. The population of this study include all residents in region 14 of Tehran who participated in plant clinic classes (N=873). From this population 211 were selected through classified-random sampling. Instruments reliability was measured by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The results indicated that amount of knowledge and skill of citizens was improved because they attended in the plant clinics classes. Also, the results of Spearman correlation coefficient indicated that there was a significant relation between independent variables of age and level of education with the amount of citizen's knowledge about clean environment. But the results of Spearman correlation coefficient showed that there was not a significant relation between independent variables of experiment and interest with the amount of citizen's knowledge and skill about clean environment.

The aim of this study is to determine the role of community based management in the process of sustainable rural development. It was survey type research and descriptive correlative method was used. The sample population consisted of 270 people from rural councils, public sector experts in department of agriculture and natural resources, environmental protection agency and provincial authority in the West Azarbaijan Province. Kruskal Wallis test were used to extract agreement perspectives. The results of confirmative factor analyze with LISREL software shows that “organizing” (R2=0.63) and “controlling” (R2=0.62) were considered the most important roles of community based management in the management of sustainable rural development. This approach could also have more impotent role in planning, staffing and directing in the management of sustainable rural development.

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the wheat farmers' attitude toward wheat waste management in the Markazi province carried out through a survey method. The statistical population of this study consisted of two groups of 700 wheat farmers who attended and not attended in extension classes about wheat waste management in the Markazi province in 2008. Based on Cochran's formula, 103 wheat farmers were selected as sample. To collect data, a structured questionnaire was used. A panel of experts and university professors earned validity of questionnaire (Face validity). Reliability study instrument was calculated based on Cronbach’s alpha (0.82). The findings of the study revealed that contact with extension agent and using of radio and TV were the most important information sources and communication channels for wheat growers. The most effective’s variables on dependent variable on the attitude of trained and non trained groups toward wheat waste management were frequency of participating in extension and educational courses, number of agriculture instruments, using communication channels, accessing to communication channels, amount of waste in wheat production, work experience in agriculture and literacy rate compared to other variables.

The main goal of this study was to analysis the utilization rate of ICT by agricultural experts in the west Azerbaijan province and identify the preventive factors that affected the rate of ICT usage. The statistical population of this study consisted of the agricultural experts in the West Azerbaijan province (N=1050). By using a Cochran formula, sample size was selected 256. The reliability of instruments was measured by using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and it was 0.86. Questionnaire was the main instrument to collect the data. The findings of this study indicated that the rate of ICT application by agricultural experts was in a good level. Preventing factors were economical, environmental and technical factors. The results of multivariate regression indicated that independent variables such as (monthly income, technical environmental, economical barriers and educational level) could explain 53.5 percent of variance in the rate of ICT usage by agricultural Experts in West Azarbaijan province.

The purpose of this research was to identify the economic and social factors influencing the utilization of farming-production strategies in the risk management by wheat farmers in the Dezful Township. The total population was 2786 wheat farmers. A random sample of farmers was selected based on Krejcie and Morgan table (n= 335). The sampling method of this research was cluster random sampling. Reliability of evidence was examined by collecting 30 questionnaire and the Cronbach's Alpha of each item was higher than 0.70. The main result of the research indicated that 33.43 percent of farmers utilized the strategies of risk management in the medium range. The correlation between strategies of risk management used by wheat farmers and educational level, technical knowledge, attitude on strategies of risk management, income, social participation, and social status and extension programs were significantly positive in the 0.01 level.

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies in improving employment’s status of agricultural graduates. The study has used a survey method of graduates from agricultural college of Bu-Ali-Sina University. The graduates’ number was 790 (N=790) who was at undergraduate level on different agricultural disciplines. A number of 251 samples (n=210) was selected in terms of a random sampling method. Data gathering tool was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was tested for face validity by a team of experts. After that a number of 30 questionnaires were filled out in order to assess the reliability of by SPSS software within Cronbach’s Alpha test. The calculated Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was 82.6 percent (a=0.826) that shows a high reliability of the questionnaire. In this study the most important strategies to improve employment status of agricultural graduates were to improve employment status through creating strong linkages between university and the labor market, revise and change university curriculum in terms of labor market needs and establish new job opportunities for agriculture sectors in non-public sectors such as private, cooperatives, and NGOs.

The study aimed to investigate factors influencing non-adoption of high producing varieties among farmers in the Guilan Province. This was a descriptive-correlation survey study. The population of this study consisted of 19278 rice farmers and by a multi-stage cluster sampling technique, 149 farmers were chosen as sample of the study. Content and face validity of the instrument was established by a panel of experts. Instrument reliability was established by calculating Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was estimated to be 0.70. The data were analyzed by the use of descriptive and inferential statistics such as correlation coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis, Friedman and Logistic regression analysis. Findings revealed that uncertainty about the price of this variety of rice at time of selling in market, low quality and lack of interest among consumers, more water needs, more fertilizers need, weak resistance to pests and diseases, low profitability compared to other varieties and lack of on time access to inputs had negative impact on adoption of this variety.