A S tudy of Training Needs On Precision Agriculture in S tudent's Cooperative at Razi University

The use of precision agriculture has become an undeniable necessity in the agricultural sector today. Paying attention to this issue in student cooperatives is doubly important in terms of skills development and student education. The present article tries to examine the educational needs of the members of 4802 Student Cooperatives of Razi University of Agriculture and Natural Resources regarding precision agriculture. The study population was active student cooperative members in 1400 (N = 121), 98 of whom were studied using stratified sampling method with proportional assignment. Data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed by experts and Cronbach's alpha. Data analysis using Burich model showed that students' knowledge about precision agriculture is at a low level (mean 1.80 and standard deviation 0.85). The results also showed that the subjects studied GPS global positioning system, technologies related to product performance maps, point-to-point measurement of the product, equipping existing machines with automatic control systems and technologies related to weed maps. They have stated as their most important educational need. The results of the regression model also showed that about 71% of the changes in the educational needs of cooperative members are explained by the variables: participation in training courses and access to information resources. Therefore, it is necessary to help strengthen this skill in agricultural students through strategies such as: holding courses and workshops, forming telegram and WhatsApp groups, inviting specialists, and so on..