Investigating Financial Impacts of Cultivating Saffron on Rural Families with an Emphasis on Sustainable Agriculture (Case Study: Balavelayat Rural District, City of Bakharz)

This study has been carried out with the goal of investigating the social and financial impacts of saffron on rural families. In this research, descriptive analysis has been implemented through field and library studies. The statistical population used were all the families of 13 villages in Balavelayat rural district in the city of Bakharz (=2908N) where 272 families were chosen randomly among the families there. To gather data, a questionnaire was designed and distributed in villages based on the number of the families there. The reliability of the questionnaire has been tested by professors in geography, rural planning and agricultural education. The reliability coefficient of the questionnaire has been estimated using SPSS software and its amount was found to be 0.81. The results of the research show that the environmental conditions of the region for cultivating saffron are suitable because the level of significance of each three variable was 0.000 which was less than 0.50. These variables include: “lack of water in the region and the fact that saffron needs low water”, “proper soil conditions for saffron cultivation” and “suitable season for harvesting”. Also the results of T-Test show that the level of significance for indices like human, saffron cultivation training and experience and local knowledge equals 0.000. Then the positive social-financial impacts of saffron cultivation on rural families have been proved, in such a way that saffron income in comparison with other agricultural products has a 0.000 level of significance and a high mean of 3 (3.38)