Pattern design for capacity building of promoters in climate-smart agriculture environment development

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact of agricultural environment, organizational, educational, economic, social, technical, cultural, and legal factors on the capacity building of extension experts in the development of climate-smart agriculture. The research is applied in terms of its objective and descriptive-survey in terms of its method. The statistical population of the research consisted of extension experts in three provinces, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, and Ardabil (N=4256). A sample size of 354 was selected using the Cochran formula. The data collection tool was a questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale. The formal and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a group of experts and using the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) method before conducting the pilot study. The reliability of the research tool was evaluated by conducting a pilot study among 25 individuals outside the statistical population. In this research, SmartPLS software was used for data analysis. The results showed that infrastructural factors had the highest impact on climate-smart agriculture with 22%, followed by organizational factors with 21%, social factors with almost 17%, cultural factors with 16.5%, educational factors with 13%, legal factors with nearly 13%, technical factors with 11.4%, and finally, economic factors with just over 10%. Overall, the factors under study explain more than 68% of the variance in climate-smart agriculture (R2=0.687), indicating the impact of the aforementioned factors on the development of climate-smart agriculture. Also, the design of this model made the promoters, by identifying and increasing the potential and capacities of themselves, villagers and farmers, to be able to adapt themselves to climate change and drought, and by increasing resilience and adaptability, to have positive effects for the development of sustainable agriculture. Along with increasing the product, it will increase the income and reduce the costs for them.