Factors Influencing the Design of Agricultural Advisory Service Network in the West Azerbaijan Province

The major purpose of this study was to identify factors influencing the design of agriculturaladvisory service network in the West Azerbaijan province of Iran. The population of thisresearch consisted of consultants who provided services to farmers. By using a Cochranformula, 306 respondents were selected. The results showed that consultants faced manyobstacles such as lack of necessary facilities, illiteracy of farmers and lack of cooperationamong related institutions and organizations. Results also showed that factors influencingeffectiveness of network included economic, extension-educational, policy-making, sociocultural,managerial and infrastructure factors. These six factors accounted for 59 percent ofthe variance in the effectiveness of advisory services.