Farmer's Adoption Behavior of Pressurized Irrigation Technology in Dashtestan County

Nowadays, water scarcity has become a concern in Iran, and agriculture in particular appears to be at the core of the water shortage problem. The use of modern irrigation technologies has been proposed as one of several possible solutions. This survey research aimed to analysis adoption behavior of pressurizedirrigation technology by farmers. Statistical population of this research consisted of all the farmers of Dashtestan county (N=20000), Bousher Province. Using Cochran formula, size of the sample was determined (n=243). The respondents were selected by stratified sampling technique. Content validity of the questionnaire as research tool was confirmed by a panel of experts. Calculated Coronbach alpha coefficients (0.87 - 0.97) revealed that the reliability of the questionnaire was suitable. Correlation coefficients revealed positive significant relationship between age, farming experience, numbers of family members which engaged in farming, agricultural loans, loans used for developing pressurized irrigation, farm investment, investment in water supply, distance to the nearest center of Agricultural Services, number of labor, number of farmland plots, number of neighboring farmers which used pressurized irrigation, contacts with extension agents and participation in extension courses as independent variables with the adoption of pressurized irrigation, as dependent variable. The results of path analysis showed that "knowledge" has most impact on adoption of pressurized irrigation system with total path coefficient 0.359. Overally, findings of this research indicated that adoption behavior of pressurized irrigation technology was influenced by a set of variables, including: farming variables, economic variables, technical variables, personal and psychological variables, and support service variables.