Designing Incentive Packages for Operationalization of Crop Cultivation Pattern of Razavi Khorasan Province Using Delphi Method

Designing incentive packages for the implementation of the cultivation pattern by farmers is one of the policies of the agricultural sector which plays an important role in providing food security. This study was conducted in Razavi Khorasan province as one of the hubs of producing agricultural products in Iran. To identify the required incentives and to design incentive packages, the Delphi method and the opinions of farmers and agricultural experts were used in three stages. In order to carry out this research, the opinions of 34 specialists and experts in the field of agriculture and 158 agricultural operators of the province were used to design incentive packages. According to the obtained results, three incentive packages including "pricing policy for basic agricultural products and guaranteed purchase", "management-infrastructure" and "subsidy" were designed and provided to farmers, which were chosen by 41.1, 32.9 and 26 percent of farmers, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that farmers are risk-averse and the government can take a big step in operationalizing the crop pattern by farmers with the policy of guaranteed purchase in proportion to the market balance for the stability and increase of farmers' income as well as creating balance in production and attention to the required infrastructure.