An Examination of Challenges Facing Peasant Farming System in Iran

Around the world, peasant populations continue their traditional livelihoods in the face of increasingly global economic transformation. In Iran, as elsewhere, agriculture is one of the most important economic sectors and majority of farmers are peasants who still farm small plots of land, usually in marginal environments utilizing traditional and subsistence methods, while their contribution to the general food supply is significant. The present study was conducted to identify main challenges of peasant farming system in Iran. Applying random sampling technique, 71 extension officials at headquarter level of Ministry of Agriculture were selected. Principal component analysis was used as main statistical technique to analyze the data. The findings revealed that five factors containing 34 variables determined about 60.82 percent of variations. The factors were named as: technical-technological challenges (15.75 % of variance), managerial challenges (14.44 % of variance), economic-financial challenges (12.39 % of variance), marketing-infrastructural challenges (11.32 % of variance) and spatial-geographical challenges (6.92 % of variance).