Designing an appropriate strategy of reorganizing fragmentation and dispersion of arable lands in East Azarbaijan province, Iran

Abstract

The existence of irregularities in the pattern of agricultural land distribution is one of the most important challenges for sustainable agricultural development, which can lead to increased production costs, wasteful time for farmers, and reduced production efficiency. This research was carried out with the aim of designing a proper organizing method to organize agricultural lands' fragmentation in east Azerbaijan province. The statistical population of this research (N=212926) consists of two groups of people, farmers of this province and active experts in organizations such as the central organization of rural cooperatives, land affairs organization, and land administration of east Azerbaijan province (N= 279). The sample size of farmers was estimated at about 380 people, using the Cochran formula which was selected by a stratified sampling method with disproportional sampling. 24 persons were selected by purposive sampling from the statistical population of experts. These experts were interviewed by SWOT questionnaires. The research instrument was a questionnaire and its validity was revised and then determined by a group of academic researchers and experts in the related subject. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability (CR), which was higher than 0.8. The analysis of data was done through confirmatory factor analysis technic based on structural equations, exploratory factor analysis, SWOT, and GIS. The results of designing four defensives, revising, competitive and invasive strategies for agricultural land fragmentation and dispersion showed that the appropriate strategy among the defensive strategies is Rearrangement and reform of land parcels, among the strategies of reloading, Integration of agricultural parcels, among the strategies Competitive, cultivating healthy crops and appropriate aggressive strategy is using the biological potential of small scale farms in order to attract agricultural tourists.

Keywords: land fragmentation, land dispersion, land consolidation, land reorganizing, designing strategy, SWOT analysis, East Azerbaijan