Barriers to Agricultural Entrepreneurship in Higher Education and Providing Reinforcement Mechanisms

Studying the process of economic growth in developed countries is characterized by entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurs in economic growth along with job creation on a large scale. In our country, to achieve development and create employments which are the main concern of officials and planners will necessitate paying special attention to the development of entrepreneurship and support for entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to determine the barriers to and strategies for strengthening entrepreneurship in agricultural higher education. A descriptive–correlation survey approach was used in this study. The population consisted of agricultural entrepreneurs that received loans for entrepreneurship and employment from the Agricultural Bank of Zanjan Province during the years 2000 to 2006 (N=65). The questionnaire was used for data collection. Through the factor analysis, factors for strengthening entrepreneurship in agricultural higher education were reduced to three main ones: The first factor was planning with 24.218 percent of the variance and given value 2.906 had the first support for success and further development of entrepreneurial activities. Also, the results showed that, economic incentives with 21.428 percent of the variance as well as legal and support factors with 18.402 percent of the variance have manifested for successful development of entrepreneurial activities.