Investigating Factors Associated with Farmers' Adoption Decision
of New Date Varieties in Tabas County, Iran

Fahimeh Noei¹, Naser Zamani², Farid Tamhidi³

¹ Presenting Author: United Nations Industrial Development Organization
 Modernization and Expansion of The Date Processing Industry Project in Iran
e-mail: fahime.noei@gmail.com

² College of Agricultural Economics and Development, University of Tehran, Iran
e-mail: zamanin58@yahoo.com

³ Iranian Ministry of Agriculture, Office of Date Palm, Iran

Abstract

Iran has been frequently classified as a semi-arid to arid country and combating desertification has been for years as a concern to country's environment and agriculture scientists and policy makers. Tabas is known as the largest county of Iran which has located in Yazd province of this country, and date palm cultivation in this county has a history of about 1500 years. Located in an arid region and consequently known as an arid county with a large acreage of deserts has made local authorities consider date palm cultivation as a way to combat deserts. The aim of this correlative-descriptive study was to determine the factors associated with the farmers' adoption decision of new varieties offered by Yazd Organization of Jihad of Agriculture (YOJA) in Tabas County. A questionnaire was used to collect needed data from farmers. Study population consisted of all date palm farmers in Tabas County, and through sampling method 120 farmers were chosen from the list to be studied and achieve the aim of the study. According to the results, the main factors associated with the adoption of new varieties of date palm were respectively as following: 1) appropriate climate conditions and good adaptability of varieties offered by YOJA in Tabas County, 2) high yield of offered varieties compared to traditional ones, 3) high quality of the fruit of new varieties compared to traditional ones, 4) high stability of new varieties in salty and poor lands, 5) good contribution of new varieties to farmers yields compared to other crops. As the study results revealed, there were also positive correlations between farmers' education, farmers' participation in educational classes, and farmers' use of information sources with their adoption decision. As a conclusion, it can be said that if more knowledge and information concerning new varieties and their advantages are given to farmers, there is more probability of adopting the varieties by farmers.