Rice Farmer's Attitudes towards Change in Cropping Pattern From Rice to Citrus Production: A Q- Method Approach

Agricultural society like other societies is changing continuously due to different reasons. In this regard, the most changes depend on farmer's attitudes and beliefs. Therefore, identifying the attitude of farmers toward change in cropping pattern is an important first step in understanding their behavior. The main purpose of this research was to analyze attitudes of rice growers in Savadkooh County regarding change in cropping pattern from rice to citrus production. For this purpose, a discovery approach with the aid of Q method was used. Then, a group of farmers in the county was selected purposively. The research instrument involved 60 Q cards which were finalized with respect to the dialog space. The participants reviewed the cards and arranged them in agree, disagree and neutral categories. The PQ- method software was used to analyze the data. The software has a high ability for identifying and categorizing attitude patterns regarding a phenomenon. Findings revealed that categorizing the Q cards were significant at the 0.01 level. It means that the attitude of farmers can be categorized. The Q analysis identified four district perspectives of changing in cropping pattern, which can be described as: convergence, detergence, overview, and neutral to change cropping pattern. Therefore, it is recommended that the agricultural experts should implement suitable approaches for organizing, leading and controlling the attitude of farmers and consequently provide cropping integration and increasing rice production.