International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:3 Issue: 2, Jun 2013

Soil Management (SM) is critical to human well-being that it is more important now because of meeting the high demands for food production and satisfying the needs of an increasing world population. Therefore, the purpose of this descriptivecorrelation study was to investigate the effective factors on wheat farmers’ adoption of Farming Methods of Soil Management (FMSM). The research instrument was a structural questionnaire with close-ended questions, which its validity and reliability was confirmed. The target population included all wheat farmers in West Azerbaijan Province (N=24949) that among of them, 371 wheat farmers was chosen by using Krejcie & Morgan’s table through multi-stage sampling (n=371). The descriptive results showed the majority of farmers (237 or 63.90%) had moderate adoption of FMSM. These results also indicated farmers used three FMSM namely 1) using crop rotation, 2) using animal fertilizers, and 3) using soil testing more than others did. On the other hands, there were significant relationships between some of personal, farming, social, economic, and extension- education characteristics of farmers and the amount of their adoption of FMSM. Finally, stepwise regression analysis revealed that 35.30% (R2 =0.353) of the variances in the amount of farmer's adoption of FMSM could be explained by the five variables namely farm size, knowledge about FMSM, the amount of extension contacts about FMSM, distance between farm and agricultural service centers, and the amount of attitude toward FMSM.

Faculties’ empowerment is one of the effective tools for increasing productivity and optimum use of their individual and group abilities and capacities to reach organizational goals. Organizational culture is the main component of decision making in universities and one of the requirements of psychological empowerment (i.e. meaning, competence, self-determination, trust, impact). Given the importance of these two variables and their possible relations; and as the main purpose of this study, the supposed correlation between Iran agricultural colleges’ faculties’ psychological empowerment and their organizational culture was investigated. So this descriptive correlation study surveyed agricultural faculties to measure their psychological empowerment and also organizational culture in their colleges. A multi stage random Sampling approach was implemented. The national sample consisted of 404 faculty members. Factor analysis determined three components of organizational culture (i.e. team-orientations, empowerment and capability development). All components of psychological empowerment were significantly and positively correlated with team-orientations and empowerment while the capability development was only significantly correlated with trust.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and knowledge management in Hamedan's Jihad- Agriculture Applied-Scientific higher education center (HJAAS). Denison's Organizational Culture Model and the Building Blocks of Knowledge Management Model were used for finding this relationship. A descriptivecorrelative methodology was used. The statistical population of the study consisted of 80 teachers in HJAAS with at least four years experiences until 2010-2011 academic years. A number of 65 teachers were selected randomly based on the Cochran formula. Data gathering tool for measuring organizational culture was Denison's standard questionnaire and for measuring knowledge management a new questionnaire was developed. Cronbach's Alpha test showed a reliability of 0.89 for organizational culture questions and 0.83 for knowledge management questions. The results showed mission culture as the highest and adaptability culture as the lowest dimensions. Among the knowledge management factors, the highest rank belonged to knowledge identification and knowledge goal and the lowest was knowledge measurement. Results on one hand showed a strong relationship between either mission culture and knowledge goal, or, adaptability culture and knowledge development in the higher education center of HJAAS, on the other hand a weak relationship between involvement culture and knowledge measurement.

The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of entrepreneurial characteristics of members of technical and engineering companies and agricultural advisory services on their willingness toward entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurship development plays an important role in job creation process which can eventually lead to the achievement of sustainable development goals in agriculture. In Iran, a kind of rural advisory services named technical engineering companies and agricultural advisory services are legally accountable for agricultural extension and rural development issues. A survey methodology was utilized to collect data by using a questionnaire interview. The Target population of the study were all agricultural advisory personnel (N=50) currently working in Hamedan and Malayer townships. Results showed that there was no significant relationship between age, gender, educational level, and work experience of participants with their entrepreneurial tendency. However, self-confidence, work courage, teamwork spirit, motivation and creativity, competitiveness, self-help, law abiding character, risk-taking and job interest significantly affected the entrepreneurial tendency of participants.

This paper uses the concept of Meta-frontier to investigate the relationship between Meta Technology Ratios (MTR) and different varieties in datepalms including; Mazafati, Rabi and Zardan that are produced widely in Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran. We used a stratified sampling of 300 date farmers of this province in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and estimated a stochastic production frontier using pooled data. Then, stochastic production frontiers were estimated for each variety, separately. At the end, the meta-frontier parameters were obtained to estimate the Meta technology ratio. Results showed that the estimated mean values of technical efficiency for the pooled frontier, variety group frontiers and Meta frontier across all data were 0.558, 0.543 and 0.0014, respectively. The value of Meta technology ratio was 0.407 for Mazafati variety, 0.432 and 0.507 for Rabi and Zardan varieties respectively. Mazafati had the lowest MTR while, Zardan and Rabi varieties are more closed together. Surprisingly, Mazafati had the lowest technical efficiency with respect to group frontier and Metafrontier. The estimated average technical efficiencies with respect to group frontiers for Mazafati, Zardan and Rabi are: 0.518, 0.520 and 0.592, respectively; while Mazafati is kind of date which is the most exported variety.

Most research on performance evaluation of agricultural crops in Iran analyzes technical efficiency with estimation of stochastic production function. In this paper in spite of past research we survey cost efficiency with panel data. Information about input prices, yield and production cost per hectare collected for 28 provinces in 10 years and stochastic frontier cost function estimated with panel data in two methods, parametric stochastic frontier and partially non-parametric stochastic frontier. The results show that according to parameter significance and discretion of production structure parametric methodology is more suitable than non- parametric methodology. Land rent (price) had maximum influence and chemical fertilizer price had minimum influence on frontier production cost per hectare. Cost efficiency of wheat production in Iran is suitable and over 90 percent. Surveyed period Khuzestan province had maximum cost efficiency and Yazd province had minimum cost efficiency in wheat production. In whatever province where efficiency is low, agricultural education and knowledge needed to improve further.

The study was carried out to assess the implication of the use of selected Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for extension service delivery in Nigeria. The simple random technique was used to select fifty percent of the total extension agents which equivalent to forty-two respondents as sample size for the study. Frequency counts, percentages, mean and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistic. Also, Chi-Square test and Spearman’s rho correlation were employed as inferential statistic to test for the hypotheses. Findings indicated that access to various ICTs tools especially Radio and Mobile phone and were found to be relevant to farming operations. The result of Chi square test revealed that significant relationship exist between sex, age, level of education, years of working experience of the extension agents and level of use of ICTs. Furthermore, the result of Spearman rho Correlation showed that there was no significant relationship between ICT training of extension workers and the level of use of ICTs. The study recommended among others that, there should be a periodic review of the use of current ICTs in extension service delivery to facilitate effectiveness in the use of ICTs for extension service and adequate funding of extension service should also be ensured to enhance the maintenance of ICTs made available to extension personnel.

Most of the population of Nigeria is rural and agriculture is the mainstay of the impoverished people’s livelihood. This paper estimated the determinants of rural poverty in Nigeria using the Tobit regression model. Through the multistage sampling technique, primary data were obtained from 150 rural farming households using a questionnaire. The Result of Tobit regression analysis shows that increase in farm income, farm size and amount of agricultural loan led to a decrease in the level of poverty by 0.9953, 0.1220 and 0.4016 x 10-6 respectively. Membership of the cooperative by household heads, ownership of certain assets, access to extension services, and modern farming inputs, increase in educational attainment and male heads of households decreased the likelihood of being poor. Findings also reveal that except for access to loan that is elastic, the responsiveness of the probability and intensity of poverty to dependency ratio, farming experience, farm size and income are inelastic.