Investigating the Tendency of Pistachio Producers in Yazd Province to Participate in Contract Farming

There is much evidence to show that contracts farming can increase farmers' income. The aim of this paper was to study the preferences of pistachio producers in Abarkouh, Yazd province, to design contract specifications. To this end, contracts can be designed, so that farmers would have more incentives to participate in. Data was collected from 103 pistachio gardens in 2018 by using a questionnaire. In this research, a hierarchical analysis process was used to prioritize contract specifications from the perspective of farmers and discrete choice experiment was used to examine the preferences of farmers towards these characteristics. The results showed that market input uncertainty is more important than market output uncertainty in farmers' decision to participate in agricultural contracts. Farmers also tend to minimize their risk by choosing agricultural firms to conclude a contract in comparison with the government and NGOs' choices and thus receive inputs and technical assistance. Providing incentives for investment can enable agricultural firms to provide attractive contracts for small farmers.