The Wrong Agriculture Practices of Field Crop Farmers Leading to Land Agricultural Deterioration in Samarra District-Salah Al-Din Governorate

Abstract

The study aimed to identify the level of wrong practices of field crop farmers that causing the deterioration of agricultural land in Samarra district, Salah al-Din Governorate, and to identify the level of the practices in each of the following aspects: excessive use of fertilizers, wrong handling of agricultural waste, excessive use of chemical pesticides, wasteful and indiscriminate irrigation of crops, excessive use of agricultural lands, and also to identifying the regression relationship between the practices of the respondents that cause land deterioration and each field of study, as well as identifying the correlation between the level of practices leading to land deterioration and a number of independent variables included in the study. The study population included field crop farmers in Samarra district within the responsibility of the following agricultural sections (Dijlah Agriculture, Tharthar Cultivation, Al-Mutasim Cultivation, and Samarra Cultivation). The number of crop farmers officially registered in the Tharthar Cultivation District reached (500) farmers and in the Samarra Cultivation sections (256) farmers, as the total number of farmers in those two sections reached (756) farmers, of whom a sample of (25%) was randomly selected. The total number of respondents was (189) farmers. Data were collected using a questionnaire specially prepared to reveal the level of practices of field crop farmers that cause land deterioration. To achieve the validity of the scale in both face and content validity, the questionnaire was presented to set of experts The pre-test of the scale was conducted on an exploratory sample consisting of (30) farmers who were randomly selected from the research population outside the research sample. The alpha Cronbach equation was used to measure reliability, with a value of (0.91). The results of the study showed that the level of wrong practices of field crop farmers leading to the deterioration of agricultural land in the Samarra district was medium and tended to rise. The results so showed that the field of excessive use of chemical pesticides is the highest among the other fields with a value of (0.471). The results showed that existence of an inverse significant correlation between those practices and the variables of (number of years of service and participation in training and farmers tendeney towards protecting soil from deterioration). The study recommended for the extension departments in Salah al-Din Governorate and the authorities responsible for the agricultural and environmental sector in it to implement extension activities to provide farmers with the information and expertise necessary to limit these practices and motivate them to stay away from them.