Farmers’ Trust in Extension Staff and Productivity: An Economic Experiment in Rural Areas of Iran

Abstract

Farmers’ trust in extension staff may improve the performance of agricultural extension services and productivity through transferred knowledge and new farming practices. Using the trust game and trust questionnaire, this study measured farmers’ trust in extension staff. Measures obtained from the two methods were statistically different. We examined the relationship between the measured trust and agricultural productivity to control socio-economic factors. The findings revealed an insignificant relationship between trust and productivity that might be due to inappropriate attributes of extension programs. This emphasizes the need for more participation of farmers in researching and structuring training programs. While age had a negative impact on trust, traditional farmers with high experience showed a high level of trust. This indicates that young farmers who mostly inherited their lands from their parents and have occupations other than farming or practice modern farming, do not trust the extension staff. Farm size positively influences productivity by reducing the number of laborers per hectare. This emphasizes that the traditional way of farming is the cause of low productivity in Iranian agriculture.