Factors affecting rural development in Lorestan Province: Farmer's perspective

Rural development has gone through various challenges as its other interrelated field studies, such as social sciences, economics, and environment. The present paper tries to identify accelerating factors involved in rural development as perceived by farmers in Lorestan Province. These factors include economic, social, environmental, infrastructure and education. Our study sampled farmers in Lorestan Province (Cochran's Formula, n=200), using multi-stage sampling method. This study is applied and used the survey method to collect data through a questionnaire, which its validity and reliability was confirmed by a number of experts in rural development and Cronbach's alpha (α=0.715: factors influencing development in rural areas), respectively. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS software. Results showed that the most important factor driving the farmers to be developed is economic. However, infrastructure was scored lowest on rural development by farmers.