فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال شانزدهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 64، زمستان 1392)

Poverty is the most dangerous phenomenon jeopardizing the human life. Various experiences indicate that many factors are effective in poverty generation. Irrigation water is one of the most necessary resources in household's production and livelihood activities; thus, giving attention to the role of irrigation paves the ground for achieving the expanding objectives of both economic growth and rural and agricultural development. Therefore, irrigation water is directly and indirectly related to the poverty reduction. This study aims at the identification of factors affecting the livelihood poverty of producers in agricultural sector as well as impacts of agricultural water resource management on poverty alleviation. For these purposes, it makes use of descriptive and inferential statistics and selects 350 producers of irrigated farms from six different regions as the statistical samples. During the explanation of livelihood poverty component through structural equation modeling technique, it is found that the producer's holding and capital (share of agricultural water and amount of irrigated land) with 0.53 have the highest direct and overall impact on the explanation of the structural model.

This study aims at investigating the effect of factor productivity changes on rural poverty indexes over the period of 1981-2007. It estimates a simultaneous model through three Stages Least Squares (3SLS) method. The results indicate that the productivity improvements can reduce poverty indicator, and the resulting coefficients reveal that a productivity change by one percent in land and labor force tends to reduce the poverty index by 0.759 and 0.349 percent, respectively; and since the coefficients of the variables affecting the productivity in the model (ie R&D, fertilizers, labor force, machinaries per ha, and rate of litracy) are significant, considering each one of them could be effective in poverty reduction. In addition, according to the factors affecting the improvement of income distribution in the Gini coefficient equation, we can state that increasing the government expenditure would lead to a more equitable distribution of income and reduce poverty in rural areas.

This study aims generally at investigating the teleworking potentials for extension and rural development of Iran based on SWOT analysis. Statistical society of the research conducted in 2010 includes the concerned experts of the country, selected in proposed sampling method through snowball technique. SWOT analysis results indicate that the limitations (weaknesses and threats) with 105.51 scores are higher than advantages (strengths and opportunities) with 99.59. Although the need for precise and rigorous planning are found as the most important threat specified, given the nature and expansion of rural development and extension activities, the component of time-saving for the people’s less personal and official trips is recognized as the most significant strength of the teleworking application in this respect.

This stusy aims at identifying the most important drought effects of recent years on the people’s life in Sivar village of Semirom county. The statistical society includes 650 residents of the village; among them, by using Morgan and Krejcy table, 245 people are selected as the statistical samples. Data collection tool is questionnaire, the validity of which is estimated by the value of Cronbach’s Alpha over 81 percent. Analyzing the statistics and data is carried out in different statistical methods including factor analysis. Study results show that the most important effects of drought in the studied village are found in the category of production and economic factors (e.g. decrease in income, decrease in yields of production, increase in costs of production, increased environmental risks, declined motivations of agricultural investments, and decrease in agricultural job opportunities), explaining about 24.46 percent of the variance; also, environmental and socio-cultural factors are placed in the next ranks by explaining 23.43 and 16.84 percent of the variance, respectively

Over recent couple of decades, villages of well-climatic condition have experienced expanding rush of rural tourism, witnessing the villa-building phenomenon. Development of such rural tourism and as a result, ownership of gardens and lands and so construction of villa (second home) in rural areas cause many effects and implications; analyzing the attitudes of villa owners and host community towards the effects of such a phenomenon is then of high importance. This study, conducted in a descriptive-analytical method, reviews the difference between the attitudes of villa owners and host communities (rural people) in respect to the effects and implications of espanding the villa-building in the villages of Tarroud District of central district of Damavand county. Required data are gathered through two questionnaires of residfent households or host community (128 copies) and villa ownerd (104 copies). The results show that the attitudes of two sample groups toward the environmental effects and implications of expanding the villa-building in the villages are the same but toward the economic and social ones are different.

This study, conducted in 2011, aims at investigating the role and position of young farmerd club in rural development in Khalaiabad county of Khorasan Razavi province of Iran. The statistical society includes 500 members of this club; 127 out of which are selected as the statistical samples in a proportionate stratified random sampling method. The results from correlative analysis show that the variables including these memders’ attitudes towards the clubs’ role in rural development activities, records of membership in the club, extent of activity in the club, and amount of family’s annual income are significantly and positively related to the extent of the club’s impact on rural development. According to the results from multiple step by step regression, these independent variables except for the records of membership in the club explain 42.6 percent of variance in the dependent variable.

This study is an applied research using a descriptive-correlative and analytical method and also considered as a causal-relational research. The statistical society includes managers of 486 industrial units engaged in processing and packing of livestock products in rural areas of Khoozestan province. Basedon the Cochran’s formula, 125 people are determined to be studied as the samples. Duration of the study is one year from winter 2011 to winter 2012. As shown by the study results, the status of these industries in terns of all the functions of innovation management is at a medium level. According to the factor analysis results, three factors are more effective in the innovation management, which explain 75.389 percent of its variations in the processing and complementary industries; these include technical, cognitive, emotional and psychological characteristics, infrastructural and managerial features, and government support factors from educational and financial aspects.

This study analyzes factors affecting the average annual income of settled nomads in Ilam province of Iran. The study is conducted in a survey method and its statistical society includes the settled nomads of the province. In addition, the time span of research is the year 2010 and its sampling method is a proportionate stratified one. The study results indicate that independent variables including number of livestock units, dry cultivated land area, irrigated land area under cultivation, and anount of livestock products are significantly and directly correlated with the dependent variable by 99 percent confidence; also, among the independent variable entered into the multiple variable regression model, all the variables except for the last one are found effective on the dependent variable by the confidence of 99 percent. In addition, study findings indicate that there is no significant difference between the average annual incomes of the statistical society and the samples by the confidence of 95 percent.