Orientations before and after the Islamic Revolution in Developing Small and Large Land use Systems

It is the objective of the present study to identify the orientations in agricultural development plans regarding land use and farm unit development as adopted by the six development plans executed prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and the five economic, social, and cultural development plans executed after 1979. For this purpose, a literature review was conducted using the published reports on the above-mentioned plans and the validity of the documents reviewed was verified by both internal and external critical analyses. .The results from the review revealed that the state government in all the pre-revolution development plans and in the first five post-revolution ones was focused on developing large-scale farm units rather than peasant ones, which led to strict limitations on small units. In the sixth development plan, the government shifted to supporting peasant units. In the post-revolution development plans, a greater focus is witnessed on large farm units. It is only in the fifth post-revolution development plan that this is partly moderated through supporting integration of small agricultural lands. It is, therefore, the absence of support and the impoverishment of small farm units as the dominant land use system that caused unsustainability and vulnerability in peasant farm units throughout most of the years before and after the Islamic Revolution.