Identifying the Factors Affecting Agricultural Sustainability in Meshkinshahr county

The present study was conducted to identify the factors affecting agricultural sustainability in Meshkinshahr.

First, a complete and comprehensive review of domestic and foreign literature was conducted and based on it, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed as the main research tool. The statistical population of the study is farmers of Meshkinshahr city and sampling by simple random method to the number of statistical samples using Cochran's formula was obtained 217 people which was distributed among farmers in the 2009-2010 crop year. Also, the confirmatory factor analysis test was evaluated and the structural equation method was used.

The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that all of the 75 items had two items with less than 0.5 factor loading were removed from the questionnaire, but the rest of the items had a factor loading greater than 0.5. Shows that effective indicators include; Individual characteristics including income, education, age and other variables that affect the latent variable of farmers' individual characteristics in the form of Likert spectrum. And the variable of extension-educational factors have a positive and significant effect on agricultural sustainability.

Therefore, the results show that the studied indicators in individual, economic, socio-cultural, political, educational and promotional, environmental and managerial dimensions are effective on agricultural sustainability.