The Role of Agricultural Extension in Enhancing Climate Adaptability and Farmers Adoption of Drought Resistant Technologies and Water Conservation Methods in Nineveh Governorate
Abstract
The research measured the role of agricultural the awareness implementation and resilience strategies at the Farmer level in the Nineveh Governorate, republic of Iraq as well as to identify the personal factors influencing farmer’s decisions to adopt and protect water smart agricultural technologies , the research was based on the descriptive analytical approach and an available intentional sample and was selected consisting of 200 farmer’s who represented about 30% of the study represented in the villages of the governorate to collect field data a research questionnaire was designed whose apparent validity was verified and it is stability reached 0.881 according to Cronbach’s alpha and the spss program processed the data statistically through descriptive measures and correlation coefficients person and spearman , the results showed a clear indicative paradox the majority of farmers have moderate to high climate awareness at a rate of 82.5% driven by their field experience of drought productivity of strategic crops such as wheat and barley and despite this 57% of farmers fell into the category of low adoption of water conservation and smart agriculture technologies the study attributed this behavioral gap to the poor efficiency of the guidance support provided 44% of the respondents rated the guidance role as lwo due to its reliance on traditional fields correlation analysis revealed the existence of a strong statistically significant of 0.01 between the adoption of modern technologies and educational level and agricultural income and area of possession at the level of 0.05 while a significant inverse relationship appeared with the age factor ,the study recommends a strategic shift towards didital extension by launching interactions activating the role of opinion leaders from innovative models to create local illustrative models and providing government backed soft agricultural loans to reduce the capital costs of smart irrigation networks.