فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال دوازدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 45، بهار 1388)

Carpet weaving industry is one of the important sources of income in rural community particularly in the areas surrounding the central desert of Iran. This industry and rural community have encountered serious problems for two recent decades. Astan-e Quds, a powerful institution in Khorasan Region and in the country, has established a carpet weaving workshop in Balavelayat subdistrict. This study examined the role of carpet weaving workshop in rural socioeconomic development. The required data were collected through local observation and from a sample consisted of 40 persons from the staff of the carpet weaving workshop. The results indicated that the establishment of this workshop is a source of positive socioeconomic and physical developments for the subdistrict. Among the most important achievements of this workshop are: using the potentials and local people's indigenous knowledge, reasonable profit, not having adverse environmental impacts, raising the quality of life, improving rural roads and housing, generating employment opportunities and sustainable income, and expansion of commercial cropping.

The goal of this study is to explain the economic impacts of weekly rural markets during the period 2004-2006. It examines the lack of direct access to sale markets, and also the absence of full and organized formation of commercial units in them; the problems that enforced the villagers to take long distances to reach to city, imposed higher transport costs on them, and transferred their productive benefits to cities. The study findings showed that the main reason for providing materials from wholesalers in Tehran and province city centers was the lack of seed capital and absence of bank loans, which imposed transport costs to suppliers and was a main barrier to direct provision of materials from rural production resources. Also, due to financial dependence of stall holders on Tehran wholesalers, their suppliable agricultural and non agricultural production surplus has no role in the formation and development of the markets; however markets formation has led to the reduction of rural buyers transport cost. Vendor's record has influenced their level of sales and incomes as well as the level of direct supply of rural agricultural and non agricultural products.

Despite its economic and ecological sustainability nomadic animal husbandry has declined in Iran and many parts of the world under the pressure of modernization. Spontaneous and supported settlement of nomads by state has been intensified. The present study examined the spatial consequences of settling nomads in Sharmak, Chelgard and Loshtor towns in Chaharmahal-and-Bakhtiari province. The study results indicated that the settlement of nomads at seasonal stopping places has increased the danger of natural events. Despite relative improvements in their access to services, many of their expectations have not been provided for and there are significant differences between their stopping places. Considerable decline in livestock as the main source of subsistence has led to a decline in income and increase in unemployment and its reflection is their continuous movement, seasonal migration and tendency to permanent migration. Considering the inability of mentioned towns in maintaining the population the mechanism to resolve this is to consider an endogenous and sustainable development of the area and diversification of income sources in the form of capacity building of local potentials and empowerment of settled nomads.

In the present study the optimal allocation of development-service equipments to village assistance offices (VAOs) was evaluated by applying factor and cluster analysis. The dominant approach in the study was survey and the required data was collected by a questionnaire using proportional multi stage stratified sampling method, in the fiscal year 2005 from 450 VAOs in Esfahan, Bushehr, Tehran, Khorasan-e Razavi, North Khorasan, Khouzestan, Semnan, Kerman and Hamedan provinces. Experts and managers of provincial governments, and Municipalities and VAOs Organization assessed the content validity of the questionnaire in pilot stage. The findings showed that 57.38% of the statistical population did not receive any type of distributed equipments and 42.6% received at least one or two equipments, 42.38% of them were waste collection vehicles, the highest share, and 6% were fire fighter trucks, the lowest share. The results of the factor analysis implied that 11 factors were extracted that could explain 57.07 of the total variance in variables. Also the results of the paired t tests between ranking and the index for received equipments showed that there was a relationship between the two which was significant at 99% level. In other words the process of distributing equipments, and distribution indices and methods needs modification and adjustment.

Land is one of the most effective factors in agricultural sector production. The existence of small ownership units is a limiting factor in the productivity and production return in agricultural sector, due to the lack of effective application of technology, machinery and agricultural factors of production. The goal of this paper is to examine factors affecting farmer's participation in land consolidation project implementation in Shirvan-and-Chardavol county. In this study the data were collected by a questionnaire, and descriptive and inferential statistics were drawn in the form of univariate and multivariate analysis. The results indicated that farmer's level of education and their awareness and understanding of land consolidation are the most important factors that influence owner's tendency to participate in the project and the high cost of implementation is the main impeding factor. In order to enhance farmer's participation in the project, the study recommends informing the farmers through mass media, organizing them in rural organizations, and extending credit and financial facilities to them.

In order to reduce wheat waste and increase wheat production, the ministry of Jihad for Agriculture has started a project that used agricultural graduates as supervising engineers who introduce waste reduction and production increase methods to wheat cultivators. The goal of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of supervising engineer activities in wheat waste reduction. The data were collected through a questionnaire and field method. The statistical population in this study were 112 of supervising engineers of wheat self sufficiency project. The results of Spearman correlation test showed the variables that had positive and significant relationship with the dependent variable, i.e. effectiveness of the activities of consulting engineers in reducing wheat waste. The results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that the methods by which the engineers supervise the activities related to wheat waste reduction were effective. The results of stepwise multivariate regression showed that the following three variables can explain 45 percent of variation in dependent variable: application of learning aids, the relation of the contents of learning extension classes to the needs of supervising engineers, and familiarization of supervising engineers with ways to reduce wheat wastes.

Considering the high number of rural population in Iran, it is very important to implement activities related to rural development, elimination of deprivation, provision of basic needs with the objective of reducing out-migration and prevent the increasing rate of rural depopulation. But sustainable rural development is not possible without the participation of rural people. Therefore it is important to recognize the quality and quantity of participation and the factors influencing it. One of the major factors that influence rural participation is social solidarity. Therefore the main question of this study is "what is the impact of social solidarity on the social participation of rural people? Data were collected for 25 villages of Gandoman district in Boroujen county with a sample size of 396 households. Findings indicated that there was a positive and significant relationship between social solidarity and social participation.

One of the sub-sectors of agriculture which can play an effective role in the growth of country's economy is fisheries. The existence of high potentials in the country, increasing growth of population and the urgent need for food proteins, necessitate planning for utilization of the resources in the fisheries sub-sector. Thus, this study examined the problems and relative issues of 16 fisheries cooperatives in Chabahar region in Sistan-and-Baluchestan province during the period of 2006-2007. in addition, the status of these cooperatives were considered with respect to their efficient use of inputs particularly loan. The findings indicated that loan had a positive impact on technical efficiency of cooperatives and capital input can be allocated optimally in combination and transformation to other production inputs in production process.