Investigating the barriers to the use of agro-meteorological information: a case study; rice farmers in the Northern provinces

The purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers to the use of agricultural meteorological information. This has been done by focusing on the information behavior and information needs of rice farmers in three phases of planting, holding and harvesting.This study is conducted with a mixed approach in both  qualitative and quantitative parts, respectively. In the first part, the qualitative content of the data has been analyzed  by in-depth interviewing with 20 sample rice farmers in the northern provinces of Iran. Sampling is performed purposefully until the saturation of information, and the qualitative data is interpreted by grounded theory analysis. In the second part, the qualitative model designed in the first part is evaluated with a quantitative method and a researcher-made questionnaire. In the quantitative part, the research tool is a questionnaire derived from qualitative categories. Sequential exploratory plan including data collection and analysis by qualitative research method in the first stage and then using its results to collect and analyze the quantitative data, which is finally an interpretation and time collection by collecting information. he results of the analysis showed that according to therice growers’ ideas on average unawareness about the services of the agricultural meteorological system in the country is the main barrier and the lack of desire to the training classes on agricultural meteorological services is the lowest barriers. The main non-use of agricultural meteorological services was identified in the rice planting phase. On average, based on the rice holding phase, unawareness about the services of the agricultural meteorological system in the country was identified as the most important barrier and tedious agricultural work was known as the lowest main obstacle in not using the agricultural meteorological services. In the rice harvesting phase, the weak insurance and political support  in the country and the ignorance of the promoters of agricultural jihad are the most important barrier and the lack of desire to training classes of agricultural meteorological services is the less main obstacle for not using agricultural meteorological services.