The Role of Variety of Economic -Agronomic and Non-Agricultural Activities on the Resilience of Farmers’ Rural Households in the Areas Exposed to Drought (Case Study: Chenaran County)
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Research/Original Article (دارای رتبه معتبر)
Abstract:
Introduction

Given to the geographical circumstances, Iran has been considered as one of the driest regions of the world and is always subject to severe droughts. Khorasan Razavi province, which is located in the northeastern part of the country is subject to the drought phenomenon due to the subtropical high pressure. Regarding the conditions of the province, the city of Chenaran also faces drought phenomenon, so that based on the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), during a seven-year period, 68% of the area of Chenaran County had suffered from moderate drought and 32% from severe drought. On the other hand, 45/08% of rural workers are active in the agricultural sector. In recent years, droughts have led to excessive exploitation of underground aquifers, so that 77.8% of underground water has been evacuated by wells in the city. In spite of these restrictions, the city of Chenaran is known as the second largest producer of orchard crops and the fifth place in the province's crops production. Findings showed that the city’s rural settlements have been facing various inconstancies in recent years, and abandoning the villages has been increasing. From 2006 to 2011, the number of vacant villages in Chenaran increased from 59 to 106 villages. Development theorists have proposed a “diversification approach” in the framework of a sustainable rural development model to enhance adaptation to external crises. As the diverse economic activities in the rural community create such a degree of security that the rural economy could withstand the main constraints of the environment (drought, frostbite, etc.) and socio-economic instability especially the market volatility and the price of manufactured goods and ...), it seems that the variety of the means of livelihood can be an influencing factor in reducing the natural hazards, especially drought in rural areas.

Materials and Methods

The research methodology is descriptive-analytical. The statistical population of the study consists of 133 villages over 20 households in Chenaran county. In this study, 15 villages with 271 households were selected as sample. “Resilience” and “variety of economic activities” in rural households have been considered as dependent and independent variables, respectively. Resilience was investigated by means of 34 indicators in 5 components in Likert scale, including economic capacity with 7 indicators, policies and government support with 6 indicators, knowledge capacity with 11 indicators, social capacity with 7 indicators, and finally, environmental capacities with 3 indicators. Variety of economic activities was investigated in two sections: a) crop and agricultural activities and b) non-crop and non- agricultural activities. Cronbach's alpha coefficient 0.77 represents an internal correlation between questions and the desired reliability of the research tool.

Results and Discussion

The results showed that most of rural households have a dysfunctional economy, so that only 2.95% of households have a variety of income sources in non-agricultural sectors, 22.41% in agricultural activities and 4.9% have diversified income sources (crop and non-crop). Based on the one way analysis of variance (Sig = 0/002), it was indicated that the diversity of economic activities has been effective on the resilience of rural households in the city of Chenaran. The average resiliency of drought-affected households among households with non-productive income sources, semi diverse, and various sources of income has been estimated 2.40, 2.48 and 2.48, respectively. According to the obtained findings, the diversity of income sources has led to the increased resilience among the surveyed households. In addition, the non-crop economic activities have been effective on the resilience of rural households in the city of Chenaran. Among those households without non-crop various income sources, non-crop semi diverse income sources and non-crop various income sources have been reported 2.43, 2.42 and 2.80 respectively. In fact, the diversity of non-agricultural income sources has increased the resilience of the surveyed households. But the diversity of economic–agronomic activities did not have a significant effect on the resilience of rural households in Chenaran. It has been concluded that the variables of income diversification, diversity of crop income resources and non-crop income resources directly influence the resilient structure (Sig. ≤0 / 05). The variable of the diversity of income sources with beta of 0.19 had the greatest impact on the resilience of rural households. It is worth mentioning that the variability of non-crop income sources has a direct effect on increasing the resilience of rural households.

Conclusion

This study showed that the economic dependence of rural areas of the country on the agricultural sector and its lack of dynamism and diversity have led to an increase in vulnerability to external shocks (drought, frostbite, global price fluctuations of agricultural products, etc.). In this regard, by creating job opportunities in non-agricultural sectors, we can make a new source of income for the villagers and reduce the vulnerability of rural households to drought.

Language:
Persian
Published:
Journal of Geography and Environmental Hazards, Volume:7 Issue: 28, 2019
Pages:
31 to 51
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