Factors Affecting Farmer's Willingness to Changing Land Use in Mazandaran Province

This study investigates factors affecting of farmers'' willingness to land use changes in Mazandaran province. For this purpose، Tonekabon، Chalous، Noshahr، Mahmoudabad townships and Sari city which had the most land use changes in the province were selected. Required data gathered from a sample of 150 farmers in rural areas of mentioned regions and logit regression model was used to determine factors affecting willingness to change land use. The results showed that increase in price of land was the most important factor and this caused farmers to sell their land for housing construction to get higher income. Also، there was a positive relationship between age، non-agricultural employment، total cost of production and willingness to change land use and increase in farming experience، farm size، rent and agricultural income led to decrease in land use changes. Based on the results، implementing of policies such as reduction of agricultural input cost، increase in rice price parallel to inflation rate، extending low-interest and long-term loans to low-income farmers and land consolidation are recommended.