Challenges and Strategies to Develop Student Farms in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Razi University

Sustainable agricultural development requires the use of skilled and expert human resources in agriculture. Student farms are sites of agricultural production and marketing. The purpose of this study was to analyze challenges facing student farms and strategies for development of such farms. The population for this study consisted of students who were members of student farm in College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Razi University in the academic year 2019-2020 (N=140). The sample size determined via Krejcie and Morgan’s table (n=103). The sampling method was random stratified sampling. The main instrument was a questionnaire that its validity and reliability were confirmed by the panel of experts and sequential Alpha coefficient (α=0.85). Semi-structured interviews and content analysis were used to identify the strategies to develop student farms. Based on the findings, the average challenges of student farms was above moderate level. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the most important of challenges as economic, educational, administrative-managerial and human resources. The Mann-Whitney test findings did not show significant difference between the viewpoints of male and female students regarding the challenges of student farms. Based on Kruskal-Wallis test, it was found that there was no significant difference between educational degrees and fields of agricultural students towards the challenges of student farms. Finally, some strategies are proposed to develop the student farms.