Analysis of Factors Affecting the adoption of Lands' Leveling and Consolidation Plans: the Case of the villages of Zarghan District

Due to the limited fertile land in the country, increasing population growth and increasing demand for food, land consolidation and crop integration are essential for more efficient use of fertile land. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate factors affecting the adoption of land leveling and land consolidation plans in Zarghan district of Fars province. The study was conducted through survey and proportional stratified random sampling. Required information was collected from 72 adopters and 118 non-adopters land leveling and consolidation plans. Data were collected using a questionnaire whose face validity was confirmed by experts and its reliability was estimated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient for different parts of the questionnaire (from 0.82 to 0.86). Data were analyzed using SPSSv23 software. The results showed that the most important differences between adopters and non-adopters of land leveling and consolidation plan were age, literacy level, agricultural precedent, number of farm plots, distance to service center, use of communication-information factors, technical-extension services, participation in rural institutions, access to credit, land insurance coverage, size of land owned, agricultural income, production performance. Other findings of the study also indicated that the discriminant analysis function could accurately classify adopters leveling and land consolidation farmers as non-adopters. From the total variables entered the model, variables named participation in institutions, use of communication-information factors, agricultural income, area under cultivation, amount of land owned, distance to service center, land insurance coverage are the most important distinguishing variables of two adopter and non-adopter groups of land leveling and consolidation plans.