Investigating The Effective Factors on Land Dispersion and Fragmentation In East Azarbayjan Province

Reducing productivity and increasing production costs due to land fragmentation of agricultural and horticultural parcels is one of the main obstacles to achieving sustainable agricultural development. The present study carried out with the aim of investigating the factors affecting the land fragmentation in East Azerbaijan Province. So, identification of the factors could pave the solutions for organizing the current agricultural land status. The statistical population of this research was farmers of the agricultural sector located in East Azarbaijan province (N=212926). The sample size was estimated using Cochran formula and 380 people were selected by stratified sampling method. The research instrument was a questionnaire, that its validity reviewed and corrected using a group of academic researchers and experts in the field of agricultural land fragmentation in the land affairs organization of Iran. Reliability of the questionnaire was calculated by measuring Cronbach's alpha (0.85). The results of factor analysis showed that the studied variables were grouped into six factors: economic, physical-skeletal, social, regulatory, historical-religious, and agronomic. These six factors explainng 65.13% of the variance of the determinants factors of agricultural land fragmentation in the study area. The results showed that the economic factor (the traditionality of operating systems, the primacy of facilities and agricultural production methods in rural areas, the low agricultural land productivity, the distance from the source of water, the existence of agricultural laws and policies Inappropriate, lack of suitable cultivating pattern and lack of financial power of farmers to buy or exchange parcels) is the most important factor of agricultural land fragmentation in East Azerbaijan province.