Analysis of Deterrent/Promoter Factors Affecting Farmers' Participation in Agricultural Land Consolidation Plan (Case Study: Rural Areas of Nehbandan County)

The fragmentation and Segmentation of agricultural lands is one of the challenges facing rural development programs. Implementation of land consolidation policy in most parts of the Iran in the past years has always faced problems with farmers' participation and successful implementation of the project to solve this problem. The aim of this study was to study the boosters and barriers of farmers' participation in implementing agricultural land consolidation projects in Nehbandan County. The statistical population consisted of farmers’ residents in rural areas that 264 farmer as sample using Cochran formula and multi-stage random sampling method were selected and studied. The data collection instrument was a researcher made questionnaire that it’s validity by professors and experts and its reliability through the pre-test and Cronbach's alpha for different parts of the questionnaire was confirmed in the range of 0.72 to 0.82. The results showed that 39.8 percent of the respondents tended to be low, 11.7 percent had a moderate tendency, and 48.6 percent had a strong desire to integrate the land. The results of the correlation test indicated that there was a significant relationship between the willingness to participate in land consolidation and variables of agricultural experience, level of land ownership, number of farm plots, average size of plots, crop area, distance between agricultural land and water source and also village, social trust, awareness about land consolidation benefits and the level of government support from land consolidation plan. Based on the findings of factor analysis, 71.75% of the total variance of participation in land consolidation is explained by eight agronomic, credit-supportive, organizational, economic, psychological, motivational, educational-extensional and legal factors.