Comparing Farming Systems with Respect to Their Access to Rural Development Indicators: A Case Study of Isfahan Province of Iran

This paper is an attempt to study the contribution of farming systems to rural development in Isfahan province. In order to identify statistical population, first, those villages with different types of farming systems were identified. Second, for each system, villages were selected where at least half of the farmers were member of that system. There are three major farming systems in the province and 300 villages were selected for the study. The total number of indices on two sides was listed and after omission and integration 27 indicators were selected for the two issues of farming systems and rural development. The results of structural equations showed that the most interactions can be observed between rural development indices and farming systems indices in production cooperatives such that the relationship between the majority of indices of the two factors are significant. Peasant systems and common cooperative systems came second and third after the production cooperative with respect to the subject. The estimated Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) for production cooperative systems, family systems and common cooperative systems were 0.989, 0.973 and 0.746 respectively.