Effective factors on willingness of sheep fattening system by exploitations in Kiasar County rangelands of Mazandaran Province

Use of intensive fattening capacity and lessen the dependency of stocks on natural lands is one of the solutions to reduce the pressure on rangelands (overgrazing). This fattening method is one of the important methods to increase red meat production without increasing the number of animals. If the fattening operation is done correctly, the country will not need to import red meat. The aim of this study was to determine the influential factors affecting the acceptance of fattening by pastoralists in the Kaiser area.

The studied area is located 70 kilometers south of Sari city and at the altitude of 1378 meters above sea level. The rangelands of this area are summer grazing lands and are used communally both by villagers and nomads’ herds. This study was conducted by answering the questionnaire items asking from the users, in 2018. A total of 85 questionnaires were distributed among the statistical population. The main variables were determined and the final questionnaires were completed by random sampling in the study area. In these questionnaires, various variables were examined, including socio-economic characteristics of the pastoralists, technical characteristics of the rangelands and other related questions, which were asked in the form of a Likert scale and open questions. The content validity of the questionnaires was determined by professors and experts. Also, in order to calculate the reliability (reliability) of the questionnaire, the pre-test questionnaire was used and the reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was calculated. To investigate the factors affecting the acceptance / non-acceptance of fattening by rangeland users was used through Logit Model. The logit model parameters were estimated using maximum resolution and Shazam software.

According to the results, about 40% of rangers have welcomed intensive fattening and were ready to change their livestock system. The corrected prediction percentage index of the estimated model is over 83%. This shows a favorable figure and indicates that the estimated model has been able to predict a high percentage of dependent variable values according to explanatory variables. In other words, approximately 83% of respondents correctly were assigned. The results showed that the child education variables, type of exploitation, rangeland level, having a fortune, use of reforestation of farms, duration of manual feeding, the variables of the occupation, knowledge of the benefits of fattening and having a sufficient level of rangeland for animal husbandry are effective factors on willingness of sheep fattening system by pastoralists in Kiasar area. According to the weight elasticity of grazing license variable (-0.67), assuming other factors constant, an increase of one percent in the exploitations with of grazing license reduces the probability of adoption of fattening by 0.67%. On the other hand, an increase of one percent in the area of agricultural land increases the probability of the willingness to fattening by 0.34 percent. In the case of the variable of knowledge about the benefits of fattening, a one percent increase in this variable increases the probability of wanting to fattening by 1.22%.

Therefore, according to the results of research, cultivation of forage plants in agricultural lands and drylands, increasing the awareness of rangers about the benefits of fattening and traditional livestock damage on pastures through holding promotional-educational courses, encouraging incompetent rangers, immigrants and without a grazing license to fattening in addition to supporting organizations related to providing low-interest facilities are operational and scientific solutions to encourage ranchers to fatten in the area.