Investigating personal and professional factors influencing farmer's perception towards problems of agricultural water management in Karaj County

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate personal and professional factors influencing farmer's perception towards problems of agricultural water management in Karaj County The Statistical Population of the study consisted of 5297 farmers in Karaj County out of which 142 farmers were selected as sample using Cochran Formula for determining the sample size and stratified proportionate random sampling technique for reaching the samples. A questionnaire was developed for gathering data and information. It was validated through getting the viewpoints of some faculty members of the Department of agricultural Extension and Education, University of Tehran as well as some staff experts of the Ministries of Jihade-Agriculture and Power. The reliability of the main scale of the questionnaire was approved by Cronbach Alpha Coefficient which was equal to 0.76 indicated the tool of study is reliable. The data were later analyzed by SPSS-win. The results indicated that there was significant and positive relationship between farmers perception towards problems of agricultural water management with their farming experience. In addition, the findings revealed that different groups of farmers classified based on grouping variable such as use of credit, water resources possession, educational level, farming systems, different technologies used for water exploitation were significantly different in terms of perception towards problems of agricultural water management. In addition farmers categorized based on variables such as farming systems and water transfer method were significantly different in terms of facing problems of agricultural water management as showed by Kruskal Wallis. According to an overall conclusion, four factors viz., education, credit, technology and farming system structure are highly influential on reducing problems of agricultural water management.