Barriers to Establishment of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)Technologies to Sustainable of Citrus Gardens in Mazandaran Province

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers to application of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) technologies to sustainable of Citrus Gardens in Mazandaran Province. Population consisted of all citrus farmers in the villages of 12 county of Mazandaran province, a sample of 290 farmers was selected by using proportional random sampling method among 122361 citrus Orchardman. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire. Validity of questionnaire was determined through sustainable agriculture experts of Mazandaran County and some faculty members at University of Tehran, Department of Agricultural Extension and Educatin, Agricultural Management and Development. Cronbach’s alpha was used to estimate the reliability (More than 0.7). The reliability was found to be acceptable. The results of factor analysis showed that technical-informational barriers, infrastructure-institutional barriers, support- economical barriers, psychological barriers, management - control barriers were the five barriers to application of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) technologies to sustainable of Citrus Gardens. These factors explained 68.27 percent of the total variance.