فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال سیزدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 51، پاییز 1389)

Creativity and innovation are the main foundations of sustainable rural development. Among other contributing factors, rural entrepreneurship particularly in agricultural sector can assist rural economic development by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the sector and by strategic planning. The main question of the study is: what are the appropriate strategies for the development of agricultural entrepreneurship in rural areas under study? To answer this question this study used survey and SWOT methodology and presented a central strategy for the development of agricultural entrepreneurship in rural areas of Khodabandeh County. The results indicated that due to the high potential and capacity of the region the innovation and creativity thresholds in the agricultural sector of rural areas need reconsideration and representation of appropriate policies for the elimination of constraints and use of existing rural and agricultural potentials.

The objective of this study was to examine factors affecting the rural youth motivation to be engaged in agricultural profession in Kelardasht county. The statistical population covered 2240 rural youth of the county. The sample size was equal to 327 based on Morgan Table and multi stage cluster sampling technique. The final number of collected and analyzed questionnaires was equal to 292. The findings indicated that 18.8% of rural youth had negative attitudes towards agriculture, while 81.2% showed a positive attitude. There was a significant relationship between rural youth motivation to be engaged in agricultural profession and their self image, knowing agricultural centers and organizations, the level of education, attitude, and age. The results from the multiple regression analysis indicated that the four following variables explained 21.5% of the variance in rural youth motivation to be engaged in agricultural profession: rural employment opportunities, self image, farmers attitude towards agricultural occupation, and age.

In this study the role of micro credits was examined on the phase of rehabilitating the impacts of crisis during three years after 2003 earthquake in Bam county. The study used survey technique and deep interview. The research findings indicated that disbursed micro credits to rural women reduced the financial risks of households, and the presence of women in the form of volunteer groups made this micro lending network a center for women gathering, exchange of views, and sympathy, and therefore, resulted in rehabilitation of the neighborhood and social networks which had been destroyed after the earthquake. The following independent variables could explain 62% of the variance in the feeling of hope as dependent variable which has an important role in psychological rehabilitation: participatory spirit, social trust, the promotion of women status, the feeling of satisfaction, and feeling of powerlessness. Among the independent variables the feeling of powerlessness had the most important effect on the feeling of hope.

The role of the rural community is undeniable in food security and socioeconomic life of the country, due to the strong relationship between village and agricultural activities; therefore, the establishment of an effective system of services for farmers has a critical role in the development of rural communities. The purpose of this study is to measure the access level of district sample villages to 29 agricultural services and to determine the central villages with respect to the number of agricultural services available in them. The required data were collected in 2007 using questionnaires, and the number of villages under study was 128. Planning techniques such as scalogram and weighted centrality index were applied. The results indicated that many villages in subdistricts under study were deprived from many required services. Finally different types of possible services were recommended and central villages were determined for agricultural service delivery.

The rural management system in Iran has gone through complex transformation in relation to socioeconomic structures in recent years. Generally, it can be said that rural management in Iran had been centralized and kept under the control of landlords, bailiffs and headmen of villages till 1962, and since then up to 1979 it was in the forms of village associations, and house of justice, with village headmen cooperation. After the revolution of 1979, the village councils have been established that were channels through which some government related organizations implemented their policies. The importance of the subject and the quantity of villages in the Sistan, led us to conduct the study in the region. The main hypothesis of the study was that councils had a positive performance towards the achievement of sustainable rural development. To this end 500 questionnaires were completed. The results indicated that councils had positive performances except in cases which lacked necessary facilities or credit.

The main objective of this study is to examine the impacts of organizing production cooperatives on improving social, economic and cultural indices of the members in rural areas of Zanjan county. The study used random sampling technique and the sample size was equal to 900. The data were collected by field study and questionnaires and analyzed by SPSS and parametric and non parametric statistics. The results indicated that cooperatives were effective in improvement of development indices, consumption pattern, income, prevention of migration to cities, empowering people subsistence capacity, utilization of facilities and credit to improve quality of life, interaction, and trust between the members. The relationship between indicators was significant at 99%.

Every year, a significant part of human, government and non government resources is devoted to issuing licenses for the establishment of rural industries, but due to non utilization of these units, these investments have not been efficient. The purpose of this study is to identify the effective economic factors that accelerate or impede the utilization of rural industries and to introduce strategies that facilitate their utilization. The study showed that despite the devotion of considerable time and money for the issuance of the licenses to establish industrial estates and workshops by government and non government organization, these investments were not utilized desirably. In addition, regarding economic and individual factors, there were no significant differences between utilized and non utilized industries in rural areas of Esfahan province.

Ecotourism with its potentials can be a major strategy in sustainable rural development which regards expanding opportunities and improving living conditions of the present and next generations of vulnerable people in rural communities as its main objectives. This paper attempted to have an applied examination of tourism with the help of SWOT method. The results showed the advantage of strengths over weaknesses, and the balance between opportunities and threats of ecotourism. The main strengths included: increase in employment, enhancing rural people participation in development programs, and poverty reduction. The most important weaknesses were: commodification of culture, resource scarcity, and the low tendency of rural people to farming and animal breeding. Provision of basic infrastructures, and improving the quality of public services were the main opportunities; and the delegation of the rights to exploit natural resources to self-interested people and economic leakages were among the main threats of the growth of ecotourism in rural development.