مجله پژوهشهای راهبردی در علوم کشاورزی و منابع طبیعی
سال چهارم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1398)

Sustainable development is a comprehensive approach to improve human life quality and to meet economical, social and environmental needs of anthropological residents. In order to have a proper management of natural resources, at first it is necessary to determine the criteria that affect sustainability and use the most appropriate criteria. In this research, by forming a committee of experts and the strategic planning SWOT, criteria affecting the sustainable development of natural resources including management and organizational structure, natural resource economics, environmental factors and social and cultural issues of ecology and natural resources were determined. In addition, the effective indicators were identified for each criterion. The questionnaires with inconsistent coefficient less than 0.1 were selected for weighting. The overall compliance rate of the model for the criteria management and organizational structure of natural resources, socio-cultural issues of natural resources, ecology and environmental issues of natural resources and natural resource economics issues were 0.01, 0.01, 0.01 and 0.03, respectively. Then, by the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), the four most important and influential criteria were examined; the contribution of standard organizational structure and management of natural resources was determined as 38%. Implementation of integrated and systematic natural resources management in management and organizational structure, natural resource economics, environmental factors and social and cultural issues of ecology is essential for sustainable development of natural resources.

The main objective of the poultry housing and equipment is to provide the optimum condition for birds to achieve their maximum genetic potential. In Iranian poultry industry, most of older houses are smaller buildings without proper ventilation, heating, insulation, equipment and automation systems. This has led to an increase in energy consumption and poor performance and low efficiency of commercial poultry operations. Due to the low price of fuel and electricity in Iran, little attention has been paid to control energy consumption. One of the problems of most poultry houses in the country is the lack of minimum ventilation system or its inappropriate application. This issue, in addition to problems in controlling the environmental conditions of the houses, has led to an increase in fuel consumption. The tunnel ventilation system, due to its ability to generate high air velocity in hot weather, especially in humid areas, is more useful than other types of ventilation. However, surveys show that in most poultry houses, the air velocity is below optimum. Similar to other parts of the world, many new poultry houses are being built larger. Although larger houses increase efficiency and reduce production costs, their successful use depends on factors such as engineering considerations during construction and on properly designed and installed heating and ventilation systems. With the increase in fuel and labor costs and the introduction of modern poultry production systems and government support, the process of retrofitting and improvement of the poultry houses is evident.

Integration of animal in crop production systems has a long history in the course of agricultural evolution. In this context, domestication of sheep and goat in Iran coincided with the beginning of rain fed cropping in dry areas in the Near East, hence animal husbandry and crop production were evolved simultaneously in the dry areas in an integrative manner. Inevitably, conflict of interest was raised due to forage shortage for the herders and cultivation land for the farmers. On the other hand, this conflict never stopped the cooperation between them based on mutual interests rooted in integration of animal and crop which is termed integrative agriculture. Crop residue which is the main component of integration was left to the nomad herders in exchange of animal products and manure on a national scale. On farm scale, different combination of activities such as rearing animal with forage production, utilization of crop and orchard residue and grazing the animal in rangeland was practiced and still is continued. Diverse crop residue is still used in the country due to high biodiversity of crops with a large amount produced annually, almost all of which is fed to animals. However, with the needs for the amendment of low organic content of the soils, expansion of conservation agriculture, paper industry and biofuel needs, there will be competition for crop residues in the future. Old generation of farmers associated with this system are retiring and the new generation is not much eager to work on the land and/or with animal. On this base, proper technology should be provided to these young people in order to encourage them to remain in the rural areas. Meanwhile, a new look into the integration process in small holding farming system is needed based on the emergence of new technologies.

As part of a reaserch project on the evaluation of agricultural journals by the Iranian Academy of Sciences, the objective of this study was to evaluate the quality of animal sciencerelated periodicals and management aspects of the journals in Iran. Ten indices were designed for evaluating the quality of published papers and another 10 indices for evaluation of the editorial quality of the journals. These indices were applied to 11 available journals published in 2014. The data were statistically analyzed using the “normal distribution” procedure to rank the journals into 5 categories from “very good” to “very weak”. The results showed that 27.3% of the journals ranked “very good” or “good”, 54.4% “intermediate”and 27.3% “weak”. The journals were also compared for five important indices related to innovativeness, applicability and up-to-dateness of the articles and practical usefulness and necessity of publication of the journal. Among the journals evaluated, Journal of Livestock Sciences and Technologies (in English), Iranian Journal of Animal Science and Ruminant Research (both in Farsi), achieved the highest scores in 3 indices. Other journals did not rank high in any of the indices. It is recommended that journals put more emphasis on the quality when accepting papers for publication, publication of very weak journals be discontinued, and more support be given to the journals sponsored by the scientific societies.

The virtual water trade concept was devised about three decades ago and it is now considered as a way of balancing the distribution of water among countries and regions in attempts to confront with water scarcity. The background literature of virtual water has developed independent of economic knowledge and economists have not endeavored to theorize it. Based on this concept, the export of agricultural products from Iran has been under much criticism in recent years. This study attempts to provide a simple economic model that works with based on opportunity cost theory in combination with economic water productivity and virtual water trade concepts to evaluate major agricultural products of Iran exported or imported in a five-year period. According to the results, internal production of strategic crops has high opportunity costs. The exporting of fruits such as kiwi, citrus, grapes, watermelon, cucumber and tomato created high virtual water values, even higher than pistachio. However, under the water crisis conditions in Iran, these values are much lower than real value of water.

The amount of water used to produce a product or service is called virtual water. Trade of products and services between countries is called virtual water trade. Virtual water for a given product is an index of environmental degradation that occurred by the product production. Usually, there are misinterpretation in virtual water concepts that makes its applicability for substitution of a product with others questionable. Therefore, the planning concepts for virtual water trade should be taken into consideration. In this survey, first the potential of the concepts of virtual water trade were investigated. In applicability of the concepts of virtual water trade, the regional context and conscious choice should be considered. The effective factors in proper applicability of the virtual water concepts to food trade are food security, food self-sufficiency, food safety, food sovereignty, and environmental conservation. Furthermore, in this regards, the employment and poverty in a country should be considered. Also, in applicability of the virtual water trade, the geo-politics, pricing and subsidies for agricultural products, investments in infrastructure instead of virtual water trade, and changing diets should be considered. For reduction in the virtual water trade, the value of water in agricultural products and food production methods should be changed. Although the methods of calculating the virtual water of agricultural products are not well established, these uncertainties should not be emphasized very much; rather, the policy makers should be familiarized with the concepts of the virtual water trade in order to make conscious choices.

Due to the increasing world population, the need for food has also been increased and food has been produced in a variety of methods, some of which have had unhealthy effects on the health of the society. The residual of the pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, mycotoxins, heavy metals and synthetic preservatives are among the factors that their presence in food is unknown to the people and is considered to be a major health hazard. Unfortunately, considering the subject of food security and placing our country in a dangerous and insecure food region, food quality is not a top priority in our country. Factors such as household income, culture, macroeconomic policies, rising prices for energy sources, climate change, agricultural crop residues, livestock diseases and agricultural crop pests are the most important challenges for establishment of a sustainable food system. Lack of continuity of scientific programs based on the country's development plans, lack of independent and unique organization for the food industry, import of unprocessed agricultural products and lack of appropriate quality of them, abundance of various harmful chemicals Consumption in agriculture and the food industry without the existence of deterrent laws are the most important threats to the health and food security of our country.

The portrait of the world in the Digital Era indicates that we are facing critical challenges in providing food for growing population, while sustaining infrastructural resources are under vital question of technology application communication. If knowledge is power, then poverty means lack of knowledge that is in turn, information and knowledge poverty as the result of lack or poor communication. Development, also is the result of solving problems of advancement toward the better life. It can be concluded that development needs communication to empower people with knowledge to overcome their problems. The purpose of this paper is to link communication to development through the strategic modeling for empowerment and poverty abolition. Rhetoric analytical methodology applied to review literature, field experiences, and evaluation of extension project implemented to put theories into action to develop sustainable agriculture. Taking the advantage of reviewing different technology acceptance models (TAM1, TAM2, TAM3, and UTAUT2), theories of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Planned Behavior (TPB), the prophesy of communication to development, complementary role of extension education and strategies of adaptable technology transfer, from one hand along with integration of advance management theories (strategic, foresight, agility and chaos theories), as well as regarding behavioral engineering process (optimization cycle) along with generative extension versus authoritative public extension in the context of chaotic agricultural industry, from the other over-determined “development communication/ user empowerment/ sustainable agriculture model”, to visualize concepts of persuative communication in ultimate way of knowledge based technology transfer and application and boosting technology applicants self-efficacy.