Farmers’Livelihood Dependency on Cotton Farming in Golestan province

This research was carried out in rural areas of Golestan province. The target population of the research includes 7,950 cotton farmers in Golestan province. The sample size was 386 and was selected by multi-stage technique from 16 villages within four major cotton production Counties. The required data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire. The face and content validity of the research questionnaire was confirmed based on the views of the Research Scientific Committee and experts from the Cotton Researches Center. Reliability was calculated and confirmed by calculating Alpha-Cronbach for different sections of the questionnaire between 0.70 and 0.81. The results showed that all the six components mentioned in the research conceptual model has been verified based on field data (appropriate fit of the model) and these components include: income/financial dependency on cotton cultivation, "occupational dependency (perceived the employability of cotton cultivation)", "social/spatial dependency on cotton cultivation", "formal and informal business network (social capital related to cotton cultivation)", "business capability (perceived the ease/feasibility of cotton cultivation)" and "positive perspective toward cotton business (long-term constructive approach to cotton cultivation)" which have a significant relationship with the main construct; dependency on cotton production as the main source of livelihood. The results of dependency classifying showed that 73.06% of farmers have a high dependency on cotton cultivation for their livelihood, while 18.13% have a moderate dependency and 8.81% have a low dependency.