{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026829268292682926, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01707317073170732, 'mean_word_length': 5.411458333333333, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Effective Factors in Agricultural Apple Waste in Islamic Republic of Iran: A Comparative Study

Abstract With population growth, massive pressure has been put on natural resources to produce more agricultural products, whilst million tons of agricultural products go to waste during agricultural process. The main purpose of the study was to investigate effective factors in apple waste in Zanjan Province, Iran. The population consisted of apple farmers (NF= 1000) and extension experts (NEE=78) who deal with activities about apple in Zanjan Province. A sample of 200 apple farmers and 78 extension experts were selected using stratified random sampling method. Data were collected through questionnaires. Validity of questionnaire was determined through opinions of faculty members at University of Tehran and agricultural experts in Zanjan Province. Cronbach’s alpha was used to estimate the reliability. The reliability was found to be acceptable (alpha nF= 0.75, alpha nEE= 0.86). The results revealed that post harvesting problem, pre-harvesting-natural problem, infrastructure and harvesting problems were the four factors affected apple waste. These factors could totally explained 66.38 percent of variance of variables.