an analysis of location factors affecting establishment of agricultural product processing industries, north khorasan province

location factors are among the basic components of development of rural industries in general and agricultural product processing industries in particular. the present study, with the aim of analyzing location factors affecting establishment of agricultural product processing industries in north khorasan province, was carried out through the description- survey method. the statistical population of the research was composed of the managers and owners of industries in north khorasan province. as the number of these industrial units was limited, thus the census method was employed to gather the data. the data was gathered through a questionnaire the reliability of which was confirmed by cronbach's alpha the coefficient of which was found out to be 0.87. statistical analysis was performed using spss software. in total, six factors were nominated and extracted through factor analysis technique as location factors of food processing industries' site of establishment. it was revealed that six factors of logistic services, production factor, infrastructural factor, natural and environmental factors, accessibility to official services, and transportation network were the most important factors, which explained 27.4, 14.2, 11.2, 10.7, 7.8 and 7.7 percent of total variance respectively. in total, these six factors explained 79 percent of variance of the location factors.