Title (English): Factors motivating rural youth of Gonbad- e- Kavous to choose agricultural occupations

A study of Iran economic sector's function shows the suitable and exceptional situation of agricultural sector in national economy (Shahabadi, 2009:126). On the other side, human resources is an important and effective factor in agricultural development while rural youth are vast majority of rural population and work forces (Shahbazi, 2005, 551). Hence, provision of condition to lead this active human force on agriculture sector in addition to job creation, can be an important factor in agricultural sustainability and economic growth of rural areas. Therefore, the main issue in development is that how rural youth can be empowered and join to agricultural activities and being efficient in the process of economic development? These are basic questions that governments are encountering with them. The rural areas of Gonbad-e-Kavous county having large and productive farmlands and educated rural youth can play an important role in agricultural development provided by empowering the youth people. For this reason, we decided to investigate factors motivating rural youth to choose agricultural occupations. This applied and descriptive- correlational study conducted in 2th half 2011. Survey research method was used in this study. The statistic population of the study was consisted 39057 rural youth in age group of 15- 24 years from Gonbad-e-Kavous County. Based on Cochran's formula, a sample consisting 347 youth was selected for the study. Proportional stratified random sampling method was used for data collecting. The study area was consisted of two section, viz. Markazi and Dashlibroon, and six rural districts. The instrument of the study was a researcher's made questionnaire with three separated parts, i.e. personal and occupational characteristics, youth's motivation in relation with agricultural vocations, and barriers to agricultural occupations in rural areas. Content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by academy stuff of department of agricultural management and development in Tehran University. For reliability of the instrument, the Cronbach alpha of. 72 and. 90 achieved for motivation and rural areas problems scale, respectively. SPSS ver.19 software was used for data analysis. Based on the results, only 14.4% of youth were low interested towards agricultural occupations and at this time 51% of them tend to establish agricultural occupation. Half of them stated that their reluctance was related to lack of facilities and up to date technical and financial supports of agricultural sector by government organization. In the study of factors affecting motive for selecting agricultural vocations, rural youth of Gonbad-e-Kavous stated that application of useful solutions in confronting problems, and ability to do long term farming works are the most important factors of increasing the motive. In rural youth viewpoint, poor financial facilities, poor awareness of bureau employees about real needs of farmers were ranked as the most important problems of agricultural occupation. Demurger et al. (2010) showed that lack of support of government and society, hardship and low profitability of agricultural activities are of main disadvantages of these occupations. While Aitken (2010:1) showed some instances of business started up by low resource rural youth; in viewpoint of youth, the main advantages of these occupations were job creation and incomer generation. Demurger et al. (2010) also showed that better off rural households perceived agricultural employments as a good income sources. In our study, the result of correlation analysis showed that there was significant relationship between farming experiences, tendency to employment in agriculture sector, irrigated land ownership, characteristics of entrepreneurial personality, and motivation rate to select agricultural vocations. This result confirmed by several previous studies (Malloryand Sommer, 1986; Talbert and Balschweid, 2004; Sadighi, 2005; Eskandari and Dinpanah, 2006; Poursina et al., 2010; and Aghasizadeh, 1996). The result of t-test showed that there was a significant difference between occupation situation, tendency to launch agricultural vocation, having skill or expertise, and rural youth motivation to select agricultural occupations. Multiple regression analysis also revealed that pragmatis, seeking ‌to‌ challenge, and tolerance ‌of‌ ambiguity. were main determinants of youth's motives to choose agricultural employments. Webster et al. (2008) found that youth entered agricultural training program because of their strong belief in the future of farming and to generate additional. Considering the findings of the study the following recommendations is presented to promote motives of rural youth of Gonbad-e Kavous for entering in agriculture sector. Promotion of working culture for own and employment in non-waged sector by establishing self employment centers in rural areas having facilities such as training courses, producing workshops, booth of the commodity selling and technical services. Conducting training courses for rural youth who have higher entrepreneurial spirits and recognizing their interested activities to pay them special agricultural credits to create effective occupations in this sector.