Educational needs of urban Farmers from the view point of Zanjan city citizens

Urban farmers are citizens living in city that produce agricultural crops within the city and its outlying areas. The purpose of this study was to identify the educational needs of urban farmers. In this study, Descriptive-survey method was used in this study. The validity of the questionnaire was approved by a panel of academic experts. Pre-test and calculating the theta reliability was used to measure the reliability (θ= 0.92). Urban farmers in Zanjan city formed the population of the study (N=2300) and the sample size was estimated by using Cochran's formula (n=150). Samples were selected using cluster sampling method. Results showed that the most important educational needs of urban farmers based on C.V were: how to combat pests and plant diseases, crop cultivation principles, principles of proper irrigation, non-chemical and biological ways of fighting pests, spraying operation principles and familiarity with a variety of pesticides and their use. Result of correlation analysis showed that there is significant and positive relationship between educational needs and level of education and interest to urban agriculture and there is no significant relationship between educational needs and age, the space for urban agriculture and urban agriculture experience. The result of U test showed that educational needs of people participating in at least one agricultural training courses were significantly less than those without experience in agricultural training course. According to the results there is no significant difference in terms of educational needs between the citizens of the three areas of the city.