Effective Factors on Agricultural Land Use Change in Guilan Province, Iran

Abstract

To identify effective factors on agricultural land use changes in Guilan Province of northern Iran, a study with 320 experts of Agricultural Organization and Main Department of Natural Resources of Guilan‘s experts was done. This research was an applied research and descriptive. A questionnaire was the main research instrument. For determining the validity of the questionnaire, the face and content validity was used. Cronbach's alpha was used to measure the reliability of the instrument, which was 0.94 and showed the instrument reliability. Results showed that economic factors had the greatest impact on agricultural land use changes in Guilan followed by Social, management and policy making related, personal and technical factors. Of the selected economic factors, locating in the outskirts of cities and no justification about expenditure with revenue had the greatest impact of land use changes. Population growth and expansion of the physical part of the city was the most effective social factor in land use change. Lack of support for manufacturer from managerial and policy making factors and increasing age of farmers were among the individual factors also impacted land use change. Traditional production methods and changes in cropping patterns were technical and technological factors respectively had less impact compared to the identified economic, social, and managerial factors.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n11p744