Factors affecting rice wastage in Mazandaran Province, Iran

This study investigated factors influencing rice wastage in Mazandaran Province, Iran. The wastage was estimated by a combination of the Delphi technique and interviews. Nineteen experts were sampled by snowball sampling for the Delphi technique. In addition, a sample of 258 farmers was sampled using Cochran's formula. Ordinal logistic regression using STATA Software was employed for data analysis. According to the results, 12 local factors influencing rice wastage were derived among which 'pests (Chilo suppressalis, Ephydra afghanica Dahl, etc.)', accounting for 5% of the wastage, was found to be the most important cause of wastage in the region. The findings also showed six factors - including age, educational level, farm area, mean crop yield, number of machines owned, and waste management knowledge - had significant and positive impact on increasing the wastage and discriminated the paddy growers in four groups, i.e., farmers with low, relatively low, relatively high and high wastage.