Barriers of sustainable corn production from viewpoint of educational, policy making, social, economic and environmental aspects in Qazvin Province,Iran

The sustainable agriculture has been noted by researcher long ago from viewpoint of educational, policy making, social, economic and environmental aspects. This research aimed at analyzing barriers of sustainable production of grain corn in Qazvin Province. The research method is causal-relationship and the statistical population include 987 grain corn producers in Qazvin Province which has been selected using Cochran formula as the statistical sample. The required data was collected using a questionnaire through random sampling method. The validity of the questionnaire was determined based on the comments of experts in agricultural promotion and education department affiliated to Qazvin Province Agricultural Organization and its reliability was determined using ordinal theta coefficient 0.89. The data was processed by AMOS/SPSS software. Results obtained from Spearman Correlation Analysis and structural equation indicated that lacking films and documentaries (educational factor), intermediaries (economic factor), lacking structure for participation of producers (from social viewpoint), failing to cultivate resistant types (agricultural aspect) and lacking accurate regulations for using chemical fertilizers are among main policy making barriers for sustainable grain corn production. The ordinal regression analysis showed that the agricultural (lack of preventing pests and diseases through cultivating resistant varieties), social (lack of suitable conditions for corn producers in decision making and planning) and educational (providing films and documentaries regarding scientific training for using natural products) factors affect barriers of sustainable grain corn production. These variable may explain in total 13-46% of dependent variable changes.