فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال دوازدهم شماره 2 (پیاپی 46، تابستان 1388)

The impact of trade liberalization on macro economic variables in developing countries is one of the main issues that attracts the interest of development economists. Among all the rights that are given to the people of a society, food security is the most important individual need and its provision is the responsibility of states. Food trade is necessary for securing food security. Considering the importance of this issue this study examined the impacts of trade liberalization on food security of rural households using openness index and aggregate household food security index during the period 1983-2006 by applying vector error correction model. The findings indicated that trade liberalization had a mild impact on food security of rural households. This impact was negative in the short term and positive in the long term.

Although poverty reduction is one of the most important objectives of the most economic adjustment programs, studies showed a gradual rise in rural poverty due to inappropriate methods of study and implementation in most programs, such that most of the pre determined objectives have not been achieved. The main question is whether poverty in rural areas can be alleviated by changing the method of study and implementation of these programs? In most cases, these programs have been implemented with minimum participation from people, and only limited to influential groups in rural areas. The present study used Stages of Progress Approach in Hosseinabad region, and identified the importance and position of the social and development programs in providing for the livelihood of the poor. It also examined the management and intervention methods in such areas. The results indicated a significant reduction of poverty rates following the implementation of programs that were prepared with reasonable methods based on the views and requests of the local people, a reduction that its realization was due to the diversification of the methods of livelihood provision. Also, this study indicated that in addition to income provision, the provision of welfare and hygienic facilities should be considered.

The social insurance system has been a necessity in rural life during the last few decades considering its role in sustainability of activities and improvement of the quality of rural life. The present study tries to explain the adoption of social insurance among the farmers of Ghorveh and Dehgolan counties of Kordestan province. The sample was selected by multi stage cluster sampling method proportionate to size among 170 adopter and 260 non adopter farmers and required data was collected by a questionnaire. The study results indicated that factors related to the adoption of social insurance can be summarized in these main factors: household economic potential, farmer's lack of trust, household human capital, the level of rural development and following others. These variables entered in a linear logit model and predicted 75% of the probability of adoption. Also the results showed that there were no significant differences between the adopter and non adopter farmers considering the influence of the two factors, lack of trust to adoption and the level of rural development.

This study firstly attempted to examine and measure the degree of development in rural areas of Hamedan province counties based on infrastructure, health and hygienic indicators and then compared the government performance during the third development plan. It used taxonomy model to harmonize and measure the level of development of rural areas; it also used Williamson coefficient of variation to compare the relative coefficients of variations. Factor analysis was used to remove the linearity between the factors, to reduce factors and to extract factors that are effective on the regional imbalances. The results indicated that, although the adoption of planned policies was associated with unequal distribution of facilities but comparison of variation coefficients showed that the third development plan had positive impacts on more balanced distribution of development possibilities in rural infrastructures, education and health during the period 1999-2004.

The scientific study of the role and situation of border cooperatives has a special importance, considering the necessity of balanced development in different parts of the country and special situation of Khorasan Razavi province which is located in the north east of the country, neighbouring with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, with long common borders. The present study is an applied one and part of it has used a field methodology to examine the level of effectiveness of province's border settlers cooperative on the household economy and household satisfaction, while part of it has used a documentary methodology to examine the performance of these cooperatives. The results of the study indicated that in reality the border settler cooperatives were not very successful in influencing household economy and member's satisfaction.

Tourism in general and rural tourism in particular has expanded considerably worldwide, as a result of comprehensive development of innovation in post modern period. The flows of capital, culture and information in an overlap with factors such as the rise in income and level of welfare, more leisure, and improvements in communications make tourism a factor of development. The present study is an answer to this question: "What is the role of tourism in socioeconomic development of Saman district in Iran? Field study and completion of questionnaires from a sample of 376 which was selected by Cochran method in 15 tourist attraction villages showed that there was a significant relationship between the increase in the number of tourists, tourism boom and an improvement of socio economic indicators.

The present research, has been carried out with the goal to examine the realization of objectives, and identification of strengths and weaknesses and modification of "organizing, training, and support project for rural women to cultivate button mushrooms ". It was a descriptive and cross sectional study of 97 women producers. The data were collected by a questionnaire and interview. The results indicated that variables such as training, financial support, income generation along the household, productivity of local facilities, the provision of food and welfare for the family, affecting the economy of family and society were desirable objectives that were achieved by the project. The publications and training films acted weakly, therefore a modification was recommended. Among the problems, concerns about the lack of financial support and problems from temperature control during the summer can be mentioned. Therefore the continuity of financial support for several periods and a more precise planning for cultivation were recommended.

Considering the importance of achieving continuous economic growth and ultimately development, the present study examined the problems and constraints existing on the way to development. After studying and extracting indicators of sustainable development and giving an explanation of its challenges a questionnaire was prepared to survey the opinion of Sarough subdistrict people. The challenges and their contribution to explaining variances of sustainable rural development in view of rural people were respectively obtained as follows: sustainability of forest areas, soil and water, 25.5%; development projects, 14.2%; sustainable use of environmental reserves, 13.1%; institutional environment, 10.1%; health and people appropriate handling of pesticides, 7.7%; and sustainable forms of human settlements 3.3%. The mentioned six factors could explain 85% of total variances which can be regarded as a high percentage.