International Journal of Agriculture and Crop Sciences.

Available online at www.ijagcs.com

IJACS/2012/4-18/1311-1317
ISSN 2227-670X 2012 IJACS Journal



Reasons for the reluctance of Guilan farmers to
cultivate rice high yielding varieties

Fathollah Keshavarz Shal
1
,Fatemeh Askary Bozayeh
2

1. Director of Planning and Agricultural Development Group, Mirza Koochak Khan,Agriculture Higher
Educational &Scientific Center for Applied Science of Guilan, PH.D student,
2. Group.of socioeconomic researchs, Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center of Guilan, PH.D
Student,

Corresponding Author Email: f_keshavarzshal@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study is to study the reasons for the reluctance of Guilan
farmers to cultivate rice high yielding varieties. This study was a survey study. The data collected
by questionnaires from 149 samples collected from a multistage cluster sampling method. The
results showed that there is significanct relationship between the criteria of achievement,
innovativeness and satisfaction of rice farmers from agriculture job with planting high yielding
varieties. Also, factors like higher yield cultivars, received subsidy seed, received free inputs,
priority cultivation of high yielding varieties in use of rice observers, existing purchase guarantee
and priority of high yielding varieties in the use of insurance have positive influence and promoter
role in acceptance innovation. But factors such as: Uncertainty in the price of high yielding
varieties in selling time, low quality and marketable of product varieties, low profitability compared
with landraces, failure to provide timely inputs, long cultivation period, higher water requirements,
require more fertilizer and the lack of high yielding varieties resistant to pests and diseases have
a negative impact on innovation adoption and act as a inhibitor forces.

Keywords: Cultivation of high yielding varieties, Rice, guarantees purchase, subsidized seeds

INTRODUCTION

Agriculture in many developing countries, especially in Iran, in terms of having multiple structural
barriers in water, soil, human resources, finance and ... has become a very expensive job and farmers
compared to the cost incurred for various products get a little income. Among the factors that gives rise to low-
income in agricultural sector is the low yield for beneficiaries, especially small farmers. Despite dramatic
advances, Iran agricultural sector are faced with two basic problems in the use of inputs and new methods. At
first, being small of field pieces, financial weakness of beneficiaries prevents the use of inputs and especially
new methods of production. On the other hand, farmers' lack of knowledge of the true principles of new
technologies and huge institutional gaps that exists in the agricultural sector in propagation and supportive
dimension prevented a coherent and meaningful structure to improve the quantity and quality of agricultural
products (Malekan, 1382). Guilan province with a temperate climate, prone agricultural land, and rich soils for
agronomic and horticultural crops has unique characteristics in the agricultural sector. Among the agricultural
activities, rice production has a special place in the country.
Based on data in Table (1), Guilan's share of total area under rice cultivation in the country has
decreased from 40 percent in crop year 1982-83 to 32 percent in 2004-2005. At the same time, Mazandran
province's share shows reduction from 38 percent to 33 percent. While the area under rice cultivation in other
provinces has been had a significant upward trend. So that, this rate has increased of 22% in the early period of
study to 35% in the final mentioned period.

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Table 1. Area under rice cultivation and grain production in crop year 1361-85

Changing
percent
crop year provinces index
1384-85 1361-62
15 200064
173712 Guilan
area under rice cultivation(hectar)
27 207831
163364 Mazandran
141
222667 92375 Oders Provinces
47 630562
429451 Country
58 741241
469981 Guilan
Production(ton)
96 938732
479997 Mazandran
251
932201 265604 Oders Provinces
115 2612174
1215582 Country
37 3.7 2.7
Guilan
Production(ton per hectar
54 4.5 2.9
Mazandran
46 4.2 2.9
Oders Provinces
46 4.1 2.8
Country

In terms of production, although during 1982-2006, total grain production in the country has grown 115
percent, but Guilan's share despite the increased production rate during the mentioned period indicating
reduction. In crop years 1982-83, Guilan have 39 percent of the total grain production in the country. This rate
dropped to 28 percent from 2005 to 2006. During the same period, while the rate of grain production in the
Guilan province increased by 58%, this index has increased 96 percent in the province. The main reason for
this difference and also higher grain yield in Mazandran compared to Gilan is related to development of high
yielding varieties in Mazandran during past years.

Background review
Joshi and Pandy (2005) in a study had been determined the factors influencing the adoption of modern
rice varieties in Nepal. In this study, factors such as the number of education years, experience and connection
with the promotion has a positive and significant effect on the adoption of the new varieties. But the size of the
farm, pest control and drought did not show any significant effect on adoption.
Saka et al., (2005) studied on the adoption of hybrid varieties of rice among the small farmers in
southwest Nigeria. The results show that being owner of the farm, extension call number and acreage has
significant effect on the adoption of improved cultivars, while there are not significant difference between two
groups of receptors and inhibitor of Innovation in variables such as gender, type of cropping system
(monoculture or mixed farming), and membership in associations.
Iqbal et al., (1999) have been studied the factors influencing the adoption of hybrid maize in Pakistani
Punjab. The findings of this study suggest that variables of education, the size of field and experience corn
planting has significant and positive effect on adoption of hybrid maize varieties, while the age of farmers have
no significant effect on adoption rate.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
General goal
The overall goal of this research is "the reasons for the reluctance of Guilan farmers to cultivate rice
high yielding varieties.

Specific objectives
1 - Identify the individual characteristics of farmers and their influence on attitudes to cultivate high
yielding varieties.

2 - Understanding and reviewing the promoter and inhibiting factors affecting on the tendency to grow
high yielding varieties
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Research questions
1 - What is the effect of farmer's personal and family characteristics on their attitude to cultivate high
yielding varieties of rice?
2 - What is the effect of agronomic unit characteristics such as area of agricultural land, ownership and
integration on the tendency to grow high yielding varieties?
3 - What impact has extensional programs on the tendency to grow high yielding varieties?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The present study can account as an "applied research".
The population consists of all farmers who in the past five years, regardless of whether they cultivate
high yielding varieties have received at least one high-yielding seed varieties. Until 2008 a total of 19,278
farmers have received seeds of high yielding varieties of rice in the Guilan province but not necessarily all of
them to grow rice. Given the limited financial resources and short period of doing study and in order to access
maximum accuracy rate to obtain sample multistage cluster sampling was used.
In this study, the required information through three ways of direct observation, library research and field
studies have been collected.

RESULTS
Descriptive analysis
Age
About 59 percent of the farmers were in the age group 50 years and above and only about 17 percent
of respondents aged between 20 and 39 years that indicating aging active population in rice production.

Education level
Education level of the respondents indicated that 61% were illiterate and none of them had University
education.

History of Rice Cultivation
About 48 percent of respondents have more than 30 and more years of experience in the rice
plantation. Also, about 13 percent of respondents are less than 10 years of experience in rice plantation and 39
percent has 10 to 29 years of experience in this regard.

Main and secondary jobs
The main occupation of farmers show that most of them, that is about 92 percent have chosen farming
as their main occupation and the other 8 percent are working in other jobs.

Agricultural land ownership
Only about 84 percent of the farmers are land owner, 5% has agricultural - lease land and the other 19
percent while cultivating their own land simultaneously, supply parts of their cultivation by rent.

Consumption of rice production
In the case of rice production about 85 percent of respondents with two aims of household consumption
and livelihood security planted rice through the sale of surplus in the market and 22 percent of all rice
production spend to meet the consumption needs of households. However, none of the respondents do not
product rice just for market.





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Inferential analyze

Table 2. relationship between participating in training- extension period with adoption rate of high yielding varieties
Adoption rate Participating in training- extension period
Yes No Total
Complete rejection 37 63 100
Partial Acceptable 27 11 38
Full acceptance 1 10 11
Total 65 84 149
Sig =0.000 742 . 18
2
=
Source: Research findings

The study of the relationship between participating in training- extension period with cultivation of high
yielding varieties and the adoption rate of innovations indicate significant differences between trained and
untrained groups in the adoption of high yielding varieties (Table 2).

Table 3. Relationship between types of produced rice consumption with the rate of adoption of high yielding varieties
Adoption rate types of consumption
Self- consumption Production for
market
Self- consumption
and Production for
market
Total
Complete rejection 18 0 82 100
partial Acceptable 3 0 35 38
Full acceptance 1 0 10 11
Total 22 0 127 149
Sig = 0.281
538 . 2
2
=
Source: Research findings

According to the findings in Table (3) in the relationship between type of produced rice consumption in
terms of self-consumption or production aiming to market and adoption rate of high-yielding varieties, no
significant differences were observed between the studied groups.

The effect of promoter factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties
To investigate the effect of promoter factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties, Kruskal -
Wallis Test and Spearman correlation coefficients were used. Results of Kruskal - Wallis Test in Table (4)
shows that probability of being random the differences among the total ranks in three acceptor groups because
of being greater calculated
2
from
2
in table of innovation with complete acceptor, incomplete innovation and
rejector of innovation is zero. Accordingly, it can be argued that there are significant differences between the
evaluations of these three groups of promoter factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties. In other
words, significant relationship is observed in 99 percent confidence level between the promoter factors and
adoption of high yielding varieties. The Spearman correlation coefficients indicate that all of the promoter
factors in this study showed a significant positive correlation with the adoption of growing high yielding varieties.
So that, higher performance of high yielding varieties compared to local varieties and priority in high yielding
varieties in use of Insurance respectively to 0/807 and 0/794 had the highest correlation with the dependent
variable. On the other hand, receive a subsidized seeds and guaranteed price for high yielding varieties,
respectively with 0/346 and 0/320 have the lowest correlation with the cultivation of high yielding varieties.
Farmers assessment on factors that have encouraged them to cultivate high yielding varieties and at
least once, have attempted to cultivate these varieties using Friedman mean rank test were studied. The results
show that several factors to motivate the farmers had not the same effect and the difference between them is
significant at 1%.
Friedman test indicated that higher performance of high yielding varieties compared to local varieties
and priorities of high yielding varieties to use among other factors insurance are in the first important place
followed by having rice supervisor's services. Also receiving subsidized seed, receiving other inputs such as
free seedlings and fertilizer supply box and guaranteed order together are in the next priority.
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Table 4.The effect of promoter factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties

Source: Research findings, *** Significant at 99% confidence level

Table 5. Comparison of mean assessment of farmers from promoter factors influencing on the adoption of growing
cultivation of high yielding varieties
Variable
Friedman-Test
Number Mean rank Rank
Higher yield of high yielding varieties 49 47 / 5 A
Receive subsidized seeds 49 05 / 2 C
Receive free inputs (seedlings and
fertilizer box)
49 08 / 2 C
Priorities of cultivation of high yielding
varieties to use for rice observers
49 91 / 3 B
Guaranteed Order 49 02 / 2 C
Priorities of cultivation of high yielding
varieties to use insurance
49 47 / 5 A
5 df= 000 / 0 Sig=
662 / 237 =
2

Source: Research findings

Effect of inhibitor factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties
To investigate the effect of inhibitor factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties as the
same as those in promoter factor, Kruskal - Wallis Test and Spearman correlation coefficients were used. In
this case, the results of the Kruskal - Wallis test shows that because of the larger calculated
2
from table
2
,
there is significant difference between the three groups in terms of the effect of inhibitor factors on the adoption
of innovation, in the confidence level of 99%. The Spearman correlation coefficient results indicate that long-
term cultivation of high yielding varieties and these species need to more fertilize, with -0/421 and -0/406 has
the greatest negative impact on the rejection of growing high yielding varieties, respectively. Failure to provide
timely inputs as well as low profitability of high yielding varieties compared with local cultivars with -0/277 and -
0/266 have a minimum negative impact on adoption of innovation, respectively.

Table 6. Effect of inhibitor factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties
Independent Variable Scale
2

Spearman
Uncertainty in the price of high yielding varieties
in selling time
Rank *** 495 / 30 *** 242 / 0 -
Lower quality and lower marketable of product
varieties
Rank *** 988 / 49 *** 311 / 0 -
Low profitability compared with local varieties Rank *** 636 / 31 *** 266 / 0 -
Failure to provide timely inputs Rank *** 878 / 25 *** 277 / 0 -
Prolonged cultured period Rank *** 862 / 53 *** 421 / 0 -
More water need Rank *** 389 / 45 *** 334 / 0 -
Require more fertilizer Rank *** 586 / 46 *** 406 / 0 -
Not resistant of high yielding varieties to pests
and diseases
Rank *** 062 / 43 *** 234 / 0
Source: Research findings, *** Significant at 99% confidence level

To investigate the factors affecting the cultivation of high yielding varieties that have a inhibitor effect in
the interest of farmers to the cultivation of these varieties and finally lead to partial acceptance or rejection of
Independent variable Scale
2

Spearman
Higher yield of high yielding varieties rank *** 002 / 99 *** 807 / 0
Receive subsidized seeds rank *** 916 / 21 *** 346 / 0
Receive free inputs (seedlings and fertilizer box) rank *** 233 / 27 *** 429 / 0
Priorities of cultivation of high yielding varieties to use
for rice observers
rank *** 533 / 35 *** 471 / 0
Guaranteed Order rank *** 547 / 15 *** 320 / 0
Priorities of cultivation of high yielding varieties to use
insurance
rank *** 936 / 95 *** 794 / 0
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the innovation in the part of them Friedman mean rank test was used. As data in Table (6) implies there are
significant differences between the inhibitor factors that are preventing the adoption of innovations. This means
that farmers determined the long-term cultivation of high yielding varieties compared to local varieties as the
most important factor in their willingness to accept these varieties followed by more water need, require more
fertilizer, not resistant of high yielding varieties to pests and diseases, low profitability compared with local
varieties, lower quality and lower marketable of high yielding varieties as well as uncertainty in the price of high
yielding varieties in selling time, together. Finally, the farmers consider the factor of failure to provide timely
inputs to sales as the second rank of importance. At the end, the farmers have been classified the factor of
failure to provide timely inputs as the least important practice in the list of inhibitor factors.

Table 7. Comparison of mean assessment of farmers from inhibitor factors influencing on the adoption of growing cultivation
of high yielding varieties
Variable
Friedman-Test
number Mean rank Rank
Uncertainty in the price of high yielding varieties in
selling time 138 22 / 4
B
Lower quality and lower marketable of product varieties 138 83 / 4 B
Low profitability compared with local varieties 138 36 / 4 B
Failure to provide timely inputs 138 51 / 3 C
Prolonged cultured period 138 06 / 5 A
More water need 138 54 / 4 B
Require more fertilizer 138 63 / 4 B
Not resistant of high yielding varieties to pests and
diseases
138
84 / 4
B
7 df= 000 / 0 Sig=
122 / 65 =
2

Source: Research findings

The effect of cultural norms on the adoption of growing cultivation of high yielding varieties
Results of Kruskal - Wallis test and the Spearman correlation on the relationship between psychological
factors and cultural norms with adoption of growing cultivation of high yielding varieties show that there is
significant difference between the three groups of acceptor complete innovation, acceptor incomplete
innovation and innovation rejection in terms of achievement and innovativeness Indicators. While there is not
significant difference between these three groups in terms of retrogression. The correlation between
achievement and innovativeness with adopting to grow high-yielding varieties is equal to 0/236 and 0/204
respectively, indicating positive correlation between these indicators with the dependent variable. The
correlation coefficient results between the index of retrogression and adoption of growing high-yielding varieties
did not show a significant relationship.
In the study of agricultural job satisfaction and satisfaction with performance and rice supervisors,
results of Kruskal - Wallis test showed a significant difference in agricultural job satisfaction and adoption of
innovations among the three groups. Also, the above indices were significantly positively correlated with the
adoption of growing high yielding varieties by the size of 0/173. Satisfaction of rice farmers from rice yield
supervisors does not show a significant relationship with the dependent variable.

Table 8. The effect of cultural norms on the adoption of growing cultivation of high yielding varieties
Independent Variable Scale
2

Spearman
Agricultural job satisfaction Rank *** 577 / 5 *** 173 / 0
Achievement Rank *** 448 / 8 *** 236 / 0
Innovativeness Rank *** 143 / 6 *** 204 / 0
Retrogression Rank
ns
183 / 2
ns
120 / 0
Satisfaction of rice supervisors practice Rank
ns
384 / 3
ns
078 / 0
Source: Research findings, *** Significant at 99% confidence level and ns:not Significant

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Due to the complex of promoter factors on the adoption of growing high yielding varieties and
significant effects of these factors on innovation adoption, but the lack of acceptance of farmers to new varieties
of rice, it is concluded that these factors compared to inhibitor factors that cause to reject innovation have little
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or no encouraging power. Even guaranteed order of high yielding varieties by government that guarantees the
product, although has significant effect, among a series of motivators has the lowest correlation with the
adoption of high yielding varieties. On the other hand, a significant effect of extension education on the adoption
of growing high yielding varieties besides the small number of farmers participating in the training of these
cultivars indicating the lacking of attention to the place and actual role of extension training to transfer new
technology to farmers.
Despite of the warranted purchase of high-yielding rice by government, farmers often have concerns
about the cost of high yielding varieties on sale. These concerns can be studied in two sides. One is the
guaranteed price of high yielding varieties that every year announced by government. Farmers do not fit the
desired prices. And agree that, due to the lack of marketable of high-yielding rice compared with local cultivars,
the only option before them to sell a product is buying it by the government. The mismatch between the
guaranteed purchase price with production risk and the increasing cost of cultivation high yielding varieties
causes these spices have no economic justification in view of farmers. On the other hand, farmers are not
involved in determining the guaranteed purchase price and believe that prices are determined at the national
level is not enough to convince farmers to grow high yielding varieties. The practicing of guaranteed purchase
policy of agricultural crops itself is an incentive to encourage farmers to grow crops that are supported this way.
However, this is a necessary condition for changing the culture of species that are not protected by this policy to
the species that are supported this way. Tool of guaranteed price will be effective when the determined cost is
reflection of the realities governing on the production. Given that the guaranteed purchase price is determined
at the national level, it is recommended that prior approval of the cost per year, production costs of high yielding
varieties analysis by Agriculture Organization of Guilan and Mazandaran and the proposed prices due to the
annual inflation rate and a higher cost of production inputs declared to the Economic Council.
Yielding varieties reach optimal performance when used in conjunction with complementary inputs.
Among the most important supplementary inputs in cultivation of these species is fertilizer that the failure to
timely provides leaves direct impact on reducing the yield of product. Because much of the fertilizer supply
mechanism is outside the province, more active role of the state responsible agencies such as Agriculture
Organization and agricultural support services for effective and efficient administrative arrangements
foundations is very important in order to provide timely fertilizer. And it seems that intra and extra- organization
communication to fulfill this important need further review and coordination.
High yielding varieties require more water than native varieties that is an inhibitor factor to adoption the
growing of this species. Due to the high sensitivity of high yielding varieties to water deficit stress, it is
necessary to coordinate cultivation program in proportion to the existing water before starting each crop year.
To this end, more harmony between Agriculture Organization of the province of Guilan and Regional Water
Company and Meteorological organization is required.
Rice farmers in his assessment of the characteristics of high yielding varieties consider long period of
cultivation and low quality of cooking that is affected market-friendly medium of these varieties as the inhibitor
factors to the adoption of these innovations. It is necessary that Rice Research Institutes by the definition of
research to improve the agronomic and economic characteristics of high yielding varieties solve this problem.

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