Analyzing the Mental Preferences of Paddy Farmers towards Post-Rice Crops in Rasht County: The Use of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

The main objective of this quantitative-qualitative research was to analyzing the mental preferences of paddy farmers towards second cultivation in Rasht County. The statistical population of the study consisted of 30 progressive farmers in Rasht County who were selected by purposive sampling technique. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS22 and Expert Choice11 softwares. The reliability and Validity of the questionnaire was approved by calculating the Cronbach's alpha and construct validity.The Findings showed that "lack of government support for the production and sale of these products, lack of successful model farms in cultivating alternative crops under government management" and "lack of an appropriate market for these products» with a ratio of 93, 90 and 73%, were the most important barriers to farmers' willingness to second cultivation, respectively. Also, the most important factors determining the type of cultivation were revenue generation, production costs and market for products, respectively. The results showed that, ratoon and local beans were in the highest ranks in the farmers' mental preferences in growing crops based on revenue generation, sales and production cost criteria, but in terms of water scarcity and employment criteria, local beans and forage were in the highest ranks, respectively. Overall, the results showed that, ratoon with a weight value above 0.453 was in the first priority in second cropping pattern and local beans and forage (with 0.353 and 0.087 weights) were in the next priorities, respectively. Designing an optimal cropping pattern, guaranteed purchase, establishing model farms and development of conversion industries are suggested.