[Productivity and Technology Gap of The Chickpea Farmers in Sweida Governorate]

The chickpeas crop is considered one of the important leguminous crops that have a significant role in the national economic and income, since chickpeas comes in the second rank in Syria after the lentils in terms of the planted aria with leguminous crops, , and the cultivation is focused on rainfed area due to the vast deterioration of water resources. Yet the secondary data shows that the production of donom varies from one region to another in the same governorate, and from one governorate to another within the country, also a decrease in the planted area and production is noted in recent years. The study was conducted in Sweida Governorate which is considered one of the important Governorates in the production of chickpeas, where the chickpeas crop occupies the first class in terms of space in the province compared to other crops. In addition, Sweida occupies the first class in terms of the planted area with chickpeas, that reached 33262 hectares. Salkhad and Sweida District were selected because the majority of the chickpeas planted area in Sweida Governorate lie in these regions. Chickpea farmers were selected from these two regions in a random sample way, so the number of farmers included in the sample will be 240 farmers. The research aims to recognize some of the economic and social features of chickpeas farmers in Sweida Governorate ,and to study the extent of their implement of the technical host for this crop, and to determine the productivity and technical gap including the factors affecting that gap, and to recognize the role of the institutions which responsible for broadcasting and submission of chickpeas cultivation techniques in the Governorate, and the most important cultivation obstacle of this crop and the needed suggestions to be handled. The results that the research reached show that there is a productivity gap between pilot and ordinary farmers reached 47 kg/ Donom with percentage of 59.49%. And the research showed that most of the farmers of the studied sample(70% of ordinary farmers and 52% of the pilot farmers) belong to the age group (40-60 years), and secondary education prevails by 22.5% and 48.4% of ordinary and pilot farmers in sequence in the studied sample. The majority of the ordinary farmers in the studied sample (90%) and all pilot farmers are married, and a large part of them (64.6% ordinary farmers and 90.3% pilot farmers) have the land in which they work, and that the majority of farmers in the sample relied on the cultivation of the field crops and the governmental Employment as a main sources of income. The social participation for the majority of the ordinary farmers (93.3%) was intermediate, while the social participation of pilot farmers (58.1%)was good. The Social and economic situation of most ordinary farmers (78%)was intermediate, and for the most of the pilot farmers (81%) was good. The study indicates that the vast majority of ordinary farmers with percentage of 89% have adopted the techniques of chickpeas cultivation with an intermediate level, while all pilot farmers have adopted these techniques with high level, and therefore there was a technical gap reached 40.43%. The results showed a significant negative relationship between the productivity gap for chickpea crop and all of the following factors: agricultural experience , the educational level of the farmer, the type of possession, income sources, the total cultivated area, the planted area with chickpeas, possession of farm animals, the level of social participation, the type of the home, the availability of communication means, and the social and economic situation, and also showed a significant positive relationship between this gap and the number of family members of farmers. The study showed a significant negative relationship between the technical gap for chickpeas farmers and all of the following independent factors: age, agricultural experience, educational level of the farms, sources of the income, the total cultivated area, possession of farm animals, the level of social participation, possession of agricultural machinery, the availability of communication means, and the social and economic situation, and the study showed a significant positive relationship between the technical gap and the number of family members of the farmers. The study showed that the most of the problems that farmers ( ordinary or pilot) in the studied sampled suffered from is marketing of chickpeas crop at low prices, and thus raising the price of crop marketing was a suggested solution for the majority of farmers in the sample.