The Socio-economic Impact of Farmers' Adoption of Enhancing Food Security project's techniques in the Syrian Arab Republic (AL-Safira -Aleppo)
2024
Mohammad Noor-Aldeen Mardini
The search was carried out in in Al-Safira District in Aleppo Governorate (the target area of the project- second phase) with the aim of determining the Socio-economic impact of adopting Techniques of Enhancement Food Security Project, as well as studying the adoption indicators of agricultural technologies, and factors that influence their adoption, in addition to identifying some obstacles facing wheat farmers. In order to achieve the research objectives, data was collected through a personal interview during the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons, from the community of farmers who participated in the project amounted to 180, and a random sample of wheat farmers (participated in the project) amounted to 186 farmers, Therefore, the two-sample size became 366 farmers. Descriptive and quantitative statistical analysis methods were used for field survey data. The results showed a low educational level of farmers, most of the sample members (93.8%) did not reach secondary education, The majority of farmers (85.2%) are middle-aged and elderly, and most of the youth do not accept agriculture as their main profession. It was also found that the communication rate of agricultural extension workers with farmers in general was low, A large percentage of farmers ( % 86.6 ) have weak to moderate contact with agricultural extension and its activities, most of them % ( 86.3 ) have great years of experience, and they rely primarily on their personal experience in agricultural practices. It was also found that the largest contribution %( 65 ) among the sources of family income in the sample is due to agricultural work, both plant and animal activities, and it is considered the only source of income for most farmers. The results also showed that there are a group of factors that positively influence farmers’ adoption of agricultural technologies, The most important of them are: Participation in extension activities, visit of extension workers to farmers, The farmer's trend towards the new technologies, the educational level of the farmer, total number of family members working in agriculture, use of communication media, the existence of an extension unit in the village, and participation in Enhancing Food Security Project, While the most important factors negatively affecting adoption were: Number of agricultural plots, unavailability of production inputs, farmer's age, agricultural experience, participation of family members in agricultural decision-making. The results demonstrate that the project contributed significantly to raising the level of farmers’ adoption of the agricultural technologies package, and raising adoption indicators of agricultural technologies i. e: planting date, seed rates, soil analysis, nitrogen and phosphate fertilization rate, fertilization date. The reasons for the low economic efficiency of the majority of farmers are due to not applying the package of agricultural technologies recommended for each ecological region, in particular, adding rates of seeds and fertilizers much higher thanrecommended by the Ministry of Agriculture, non-compliance with soil analysis, and failure to add nitrogen fertilizers on schedule. The results showed a high percentage of variable costs of irrigated wheat production for farmers who are not participating in the project, it accounted for 65.98% of the total costs of wheat. The most important variable cost items were the price of chemical fertilizers, seeding and tillage, their value of the total variable costs represented 22%, 15.9%, and 12.8%, respectively. The results also indicated that there were statistically significant differences at the 1% level between the average costs of both seeds and chemical fertilizers between the farmers participating and not participating in the project. The research confirm that most farmers can reduce the amount of inputs, mainly seed rates and amounts of chemical fertilizer, while maintaining the same current level of production, by applying the recommended package of agricultural recommendations. The results of the analysis showed that the Enhancement Food Security Project contributed significantly to reducing the average total costs per hectare of irrigated wheat by 228,347 SYP/ha, that is, a significant difference of 10%, and a significant increase in average productivity per hectare by 7.04%, contributing in the increase of family income and the net profit achieved with a significant increase of 524,966 SYP/h, i.e. (21.84%) compared with other farmers, raising economic efficiency (the ratio of revenues to costs) by 0.34. This is done by applying the package of recommended agricultural technologies, good land preparation, and rationalizing fertilizer and seed rates, which constitute the largest percentage of production input costs. It was also shown that there is a social impact of the project by raising the level of: the food consumption score and the food diversity score among agricultural families in the region. The study also showed that the most problems faced by farmers are the high prices of production inputs, high transportation costs, high cost of fuel, lack of sufficient quantities of improved seeds and fertilizers at the right time, in addition to the lack of electricity.
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