Factors Affecting the Adoption of Trickle Irrigation by Palm Cultivators of Dashtestan

Water is one of the major factors which have a limiting effect on agricultural development especially in warm and dry places. Regarding the limitation, effective control in monitoring optimal use of water resources is inevitable. One of the irrigation methods which considerably reduce the amount of used water is trickle irrigation. This method has been introduced to palm cultivators of Dashtestan City, which is one of the centers of date production in the country since 1992, but only 372 farmers (%7) have employed it from 5000 palm cultivators. Thus, identifying the elements which make farmers to accept this system of irrigation could help the regional authorities in persuading farmers to employ it increasingly. In this descriptive- correlation research, we used a questionnaire, including closed-ended questions.120 participants were selected using stratified random sampling method from the target population(5000) according to Cochran’s formula. For analyzing data, the Logit regression model was used. The results showed that the land area, income level, the compatibility with land condition, and the possibility of receiving loan or other banking facilities had positive and age and the number of palm land had negative significant effects in adopting trickle irrigation.