Effective Factors on Citizens’ Motivation to Participate in Community-Supported Agricultural Plans: A Case Study of Gorgan County

Community-supported agriculture is one of the main approaches to the farming systems located near the cities in which the financial and human capacities of citizens are used for developing family farming systems. Given the role, interest and status of citizens in this approach, this correlation-descriptive research aimed at examining the motivation of citizens to participate in community-supported agriculture (CSA) in Gorgan county. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, correlation analysis, and path analysis were used for the data analysis. The results of correlation analysis indicated that there were positive significant relationships between the extent of motivation of citizens for participation in community-supported agriculture with the random variables such as years of settlement in village, use of information sources, areas of citizens’ interest to participate in CSA, level of social capital, interest to agriculture and willingness to invest in CSA programs. In addition, the result of path analysis indicated that social capital was the most influential factor on the motivation of citizens to participate in CSA.