The Impacts of Farmers’ Empowerment in Rural DevelopmentIn Semirom County

In recent decades, empowerment is considered to serve as a mechanism for achieving agricultural development and subsequently, socio-economic sustainability in rural settlements. In other words, lack of attention to empowering rural residents and lack of appropriate political and social infrastructure in rural areas is a major barrier to participation in the development of rural settlements. A survey was conducted through questionnaires. The required data was collected from the farmers of Semirom County, of whom 262 were selected using multistage random sampling. The process of empowering farmers measured, with a 67-item scale, including subscales such as education and information, awareness and knowledge, information technology, financial resources, trust building, cooperation, and decision-making on social and economic issues. Rural development with a 49-item scale in environmental, socio-economic and physical development of settlements dimensions. The results showed that the empowerment of rural farmers was effective in improvement of crop yields, growth of rural residents’ income, and sustainable socio-economic development of rural settlements. However, it is suggested to pay more attention to improvement of farmers' income, and support and lead them for increasing the rate of savings and their participation in investment activities related to agriculture sector.