Theoretical extension education modeling of citrus culture development in Iran citrus pole

Malek Mohammadi, Seyed M. Hosseini, Mohammad A. Ashkar-Ahangarkolaee

Abstract: Agricultural development, one of the important economic sections of the country, has always been given special considerations in the master plans of governments within that, citrus culture as an important subsection of the agricultural sector, plays a substantial role in the development of agriculture. Due to the lack of prophecy planning for citrus production, harvesting, post harvesting, and marketing process, citrus culture in the citrus pole of the country has not been developed as it was expected. Since the major livelihood of agricultural producers in Mazandaran is citrus production (due to the semi-Mediterranean climate) and this sub-sector has not been scrutinized properly to fulfill its developmental needs and requirements, this qualitative applying grounded theory research was conducted to develop citrus culture development model, based on human resource development indications and citrus culture extension education. This is true for the fundamental infrastructure of agricultural development in general. Snowball sampling method was implemented and 125 agricultural experts in charge, along with 306 citrus producers were interviewed in depth until theoretical saturation was satisfied. Grounded theory methodology consisting as open coding, axial coding and selective coding applied in this study. Results showed that major factors as structural, economic, social, environmental, technical, cultural-educational and individual features with its components play significant roles in citrus culture development in Mazandaran.

Keywords: agriculture development; citrus culture; development; economic components; environmental components

Date published: 2019-08-27