Globally, declining farmland is a cause for concern. Şanlıurfa has the third-highest amount of agricultural land among the 81 provinces in Turkey. This research aims to determine the factors that affect the selection of information sources that agricultural enterprises in Şanlıurfa use in solving problems of agricultural land use and the agricultural enterprises’ willingness to pay for sustainable agricultural land use in their knowledge and innovation system. The main data for the research was obtained via face-to-face surveys of agricultural enterprises selected by a simple random sampling method in Şanlıurfa in 2018. The sampling volume was determined at a 95% confidence limit and a 5% error margin. A chi-squared test was used in the analyses. According to the results, 15.1% of the agricultural enterprises used farmer organizations, 5.3% research institutions, 33.9% public agricultural organizations, 25.7% consultancy, and 20% used a combination of the above as sources of information for solving problems. The age, education level, land amount, commercial livestock, and income of the agricultural enterprises were determined as statistically effective factors in selecting information sources. To ensure optimal agricultural land use, extension and education activities need to be developed under public control, with understandable and applicable methods under agricultural enterprises conditions. Of the participants, 39% showed a willingness to pay for agricultural land use that would provide better income which can be used to co-finance the land use and increase its efficiency. The obtained results provide useful data for agricultural policy-makers and decision-makers both in the research field and in regions with similar socio-economic characteristics.
Agricultural enterprises’ characteristics, agricultural land use, information sources, willingness to pay, Şanlıurfa-Turkey