The Analysis of Driving Factors of Farm Land Equipment to Sprinkler Irrigation Systems (Case Study: the Villages of Ravansar Township)

According to FAO report to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger worldwide in 2015. The investigations indicate that except for hundreds of million people worldwide who do not have the acceptable level of food security, there will have been the serious risk of feeding for more than 9 billion people by 2050. General Director Deputy of FAO claimed that agricultural productions should be increased by 70 percent around the world while by 100 percent in developing countries to reply increasing food demands. Despite the importance of agricultural productions in providing food security and dependence of agricultural production to water resources, the evidence proves that Iran is in inappropriate condition in terms of water resources. Due to more than 90 percent consummation of water resources in agricultural part, water resource planning is of great importance. In fact, applying various tools and technologies, this importance makes the planners and policy makers decrease the amount of consuming water while keeping the rate of productions at the same time.
Equip agricultural land sprinkler irrigation system is of a kind of the important actions applied by the country planners which aims at managing the water resources around the country. The system is being used by the farmers through different parts of the country, namely Ravansar, in recent years. The present study aims at not only analyzing the effects of sprinkler irrigation systems on agricultural activities but also recognizing the driving factors of farm land equipment to sprinkler irrigation systems in managing the water resources of Ravansar rural regions.
Materials and The present quantitative study is of a kind of applied researches in essence and the descriptive-analytic one regarding methodology in which the data are gathered by using documentary and field methods. The statistical population consists of all farmers using sprinkler irrigation systems in Ravansar in recent years (190 people). 181 of them were available willing to interview with the researchers; their comments were analyzed. The main research tool is a researcher-made questionnaire, whose validity, reliability and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were confirmed by university professors and relevant experts Wilcoxon test has been used to determine the effects of sprinkler irrigation systems on the farmers’ activities. Moreover, one-sample t-test and exploratory factor analysis were applied to test the farmers’ satisfaction of sprinkler irrigation systems and recognition the driving factors of sprinkler irrigation systems adoption respectively.
The use of sprinkler systems among the farmers of Ravansar has had considerable influences on the farmers’ activities regarding cost-saving indices namely irrigation, saving labor power, development of water lands, increase of crop yields, saving water, reduction of soil degradation and erosion, the tendency to be more active in the agricultural sector, increase of crops diversity and decrease of water scarcity problems. Furthermore, the rate of the farmers’ satisfaction proves the satisfaction rate of the farmers form the sprinkler irrigation systems. Besides, the recognition of driving factors equipping agricultural lands to the sprinkler systems in the area indicates that, supportive policies, strong educational-promotive system, active participation of farmers, functionality and efficiency of agricultural lands and background factors are considered as the most important factors. As long as they are strengthened, they provide more background to use more sprinkler systems among the farmers Ravansar.
Applying Wilcoxon method, the findings of the research showed that the effect of sprinkler systems on the activities of farmers is positive and significant in all indices. The findings based on one-sample t-test revealed that the rate of the farmers’ satisfaction of the system was about 3.762 which is higher than the average. The findings of exploratory factor analysis showed that the 5 recognized factors can explain about 73 percent of the research dependent variance. Prioritized in order of importance, the recognized factors and their variances are: supportive policies (19.168), strong educational-promotive system (17.308), active participation of farmers (13.459), reliability and efficiency of agricultural land (12.181) and contextual factors (10.893).