IRANIAN AGRICULTURAL EXTENSION AND EDUCATION JOURNAL
Year:2021 | Volume:17 | Issue:Special issue|Papers Count:16

Due to the multiplicity of actors and stakeholders as well as multiple and interdependent dimensions, understanding and managing the evolution of academic systems and their generational transition require a systematic approach and methodology. This institutional research was aimed at analyzing the ecosystem of entrepreneurial university in agricultural higher education based on an empirical case study. The case of study was Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, which initiated an institutionalized effort to transition to entrepreneurial university. This research was conducted using soft systems methodology. The required information was obtained through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with a sample of selected managers, faculty members, experts, students, and graduates. Some institutional improvement actions for entrepreneurial ecosystem development at the university were proposed using Problematic Situation analysis, Rich Image, CATWOE analysis, and Root Definitions of the entrepreneurial university ecosystem as key steps in the soft systems methodology process. In addition, the following key aspects of the problematic situation were identified through a qualitative narrative analysis: (1) failure of the university to foster entrepreneurial graduates to leverage the labor market,(2) lack of strategic planning in university agenda for balanced transformation and integrated infrastructure development, and comprehensive development of performance indicators,(3) the weakness of decent and integrated governance of higher education and the heterogeneity and asynchrony of the levels of this system,(4) lack of coherent structural development to promote entrepreneurship,(5) inappropriate university transition pattern: prioritizing entrepreneurial function in favor of functional deficiency and degradation of education and research functions of the university,(6) the challenge of forming an inclusive institutional social network based on an ego-centered and self-serving university. Lessons learned from this case experience of shaping an entrepreneurial university ecosystem illustrated the necessity of going through several interrelated challenges.

This study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the barriers of extension courses held in Kermanshah province. The research was an applied and exploratory study in terms of typology of research methodologies. The statistical population of this study included farmers of Kermanshah province participating in the extension courses of Agricultural Jihad Organization. Data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire whose content validity was confirmed by a number of agricultural extension and education and rural development experts and its reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient (all alpha coefficients were greater than 0. 85). In order to identify and summarize the barriers of effectiveness of extension courses, exploratory factor analysis was performed through IBMSPSS21. Furthermore, a confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL8. 5 was used to confirm the extracted barriers. The results showed that the barriers to the effectiveness of extension courses in Kermanshah province can be summarized in five general factors explaining about 70% of the changes in the dependent variable. "Inconsistency of courses' content with farmers' time and needs" was recognized as the most important obstacle of the effectiveness of courses and "lack of positive attitude towards extension agents and farmers", "lack of farmers' participation in planning extension courses", "employing out of date and unprofessional trainers", and "weak management and quality control of extension courses" were characterized as the other important barriers to the effectiveness of extension courses, respectively. According to the results, it is recommended that the quality of the content of extension courses’,be reevaluated and promoted annually. Hence, their participation in planning process of extension courses should be more seriously considered in order to be more consistent with the needs of farmers.

Today, human resources is regarded as the most important asset of private sector companies as well as governmental agencies. Creative, innovative, and highly productive human resources is a major contributor of organizational success. In this regard, the aim of this study was to identify factors affecting the creativity of employees of the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture. The statistical population of the current study was the staff of the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture. Out of this population, 305 cases were selected using Cochran's formula and cluster sampling. The main research tool was a questionnaire which its content validity was confirmed by a panel of experts and construct validity was evaluated by average variance index (AVE). Also, Cronbach's alpha coefficients and composite reliability (CR) indices were used to measure the reliability of the research tool in this study. The results of reliability tests revealed that all of observations were at an acceptable level. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the three factors of organizational structure, individual factors, and group factors had the greatest significant effects on employee creativity, respectively.

The present study probes into distinguishing factors of adopter and non-adopter farmers in cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants. The study population was farmers of Sari County. According to Krejcie and Morgan sample size table, 312 farmers (n1= 89, n2=61, NT = 150) were selected as a sample using stratified random sampling method. Research device was a self-administrated questionnaire. The face validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a group of agricultural extension and education faculty members and then required amendments were made based on their suggestions. Cronbach's alpha was used to confirm the internal consistency of the items used for research measures and the results ranged from 0. 86 to 0. 94. The data were analyzed using SPSS20. This study revealed that the adoption rate of medicinal plants' cultivation is 59. 33%. The evidence also suggests a suitable fitness of the logistic regression model with quantitative data (Cox and Snell R2 = 0. 10, –, 2log likelihood = 187. 190). The results of the logistic regression model also illustrated that the variable knowledge (Exp (B)= 1. 88) has the greatest effect on the adoption of medicinal plants' cultivation. As a concluding remark, agricultural extension change agents were provided with some practical recommendations in order to be able to promote the cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants.

The general purpose of this study was to investigate the role and position of agricultural extension in the planning and policy-making system of the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad in order to achieve an innovative and responsive extension system. Existence of such systems is imperative to improve the production efficiency at operational, peripheral, and policy levels. In this regard, the role of agricultural extension in achieving the macro goals of the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad and designing its policies and strategies has been addressed through this research endeavor. This research is a qualitative study and has been done by qualitative sampling, validation, and data collection/analysis methods. The statistical population consisted of managers and practitioners involved in the planning system of the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad in the executive deputies and Organization for Research, Education and Extension of Agriculture. The selection of samples was carried out using purposeful and non-random sampling approach. In addition, the techniques including interviews, focus group discussions, and documentation were employed to collect the required data. CoefficientS of variation and participatory analysis workshop, brainstorming, analysis method (SWOT) were used for data analysis purpose. Defensive, review, diversification, and offensive strategies respectively ranked first, second, third, and fourth in terms of priority for agricultural extension planning and policy-making. Finally, four basic axes were proposed for role-playing in the scientific and technological system, developing and improving applied research, promoting extensional practices, revising and reorganizing education, accelerating and modifying the structure, and strengthen the dimensions that can be used by policy-makers and decision-makers.

Many people believe that entrepreneurship is an innate trait and some people are born entrepreneurs from the beginning of the life, but some people consider it to a great extent, as an acquired ability that is the product of a complex psychological process and closely related to an individual’, s motivation. The fact is that there is still no comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the factors that motivate people to become entrepreneurs. An important part of this issue goes back to the weaknesses of the theoretical foundation and scientific studies. Sociologists believe that the entrepreneurs’,driving force is their inner and personal motivations, which are strengthened during the life, via being influenced by the environment. Therefore, in order to gain knowledge about how an entrepreneurial behavior is formed, before anything else, it is better to examine people's motivations in this regard. The present study is an applied research in non-experimental research group, considering that it is seeking to investigate the rural women’, s motivations for starting agriculture-based micro-enterprises in the provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. 131 rural women, owning agricultural micro-enterprises, in 17 cities of Gilan and Mazandaran provinces were studied and 23 motivational variables in business development were prioritized based on the coefficients of the changes obtained. Findings indicated that "achieving financial independence" with an average score of 4. 50 out of five, was the strongest motivating variable for starting and running a business, and "increasing the power of control over one's own destiny", "helping to reduce some family expenses in certain areas, such as: providing processed agricultural products, etc. ”, , and "helping to improve financial situation and economic conditions of the family" ranked next, respectively. Thus, the rural women’, s most main motivating factor in this study for starting an agricultural micro-business in the region has been to gain more control over life, via special economic orientation. Consequently, agricultural micro-businesses can make significant and considerable contribution to promoting the rural household economy, improving its welfare, and therefore, trying to develop such enterprises, as a valuable developmental strategy, can save the vulnerable strata of the rural society from the poverty.

Agricultural sector is regarded as the most important supplier of food for human beings and development of agriculture without farmers' access to information and knowledge as well as paying attention to AKIS is not possible. The purpose of present study was to investigate factors affecting rural women's AKIS in the field of processing agricultural products. The statistical population was active rural women in the field of processing agricultural products in Gandoman county of Borojen. Sample sized was estimated to be 335 women. They were selected using simple random sampling method. Data were collected using a questionnaire, whose validity were confirmed by the agricultural extension experts. The reliability of constructs was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha coefficients. The data were analyzed through SPSS, smart PLS, and other statistical tests. The results showed that the level of agricultural knowledge and information of the rural women in Gandoman county was higher than average mean. Furthermore, the results of factor analysis revealed that the relationships between the variables of rural women's AKIS are significant at one per cent of error. Such results demonstrate a suitable data-model fitness. Training (β, = 0. 23), extensional (β, =0. 21). Market (β, =0. 19), and supportive factors (β, =0. 14) were the most important determinants of rural women's AKIS in Borojen city.

Climate change has recently led to diverse impacts around the world, and Iran has also not been spared from these sweeping impacts. Farmers' adaptation to climate change is one of the ways to reduce the impact of this threatening phenomenon. Accordingly, the main aim of present study was to identify the strategies for adaptation of farmers to climate change in South Khorasan province. This study was carried out using mixed explorative mixed methods approach. The sampling process was started with a purposeful sampling approach and continued using snowball method till achieving theoretical saturation. Qualitative data were collected using ground theory approach and other qualitative methods. Qualitative data collection resulted in some components which were applied as base for quantitative phase. The farmers were selected using a multi-stage sampling method with proportional assignment. Then, they were surveyed using a close-ended and researcher-made questionnaire. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software. Based on the results, the adaptation strategies fall into five educational-promotional, managerial, organizational-infrastructural, technicalagricultural, and economic-financial strategies. The results revealed that the organizational-infrastructural strategies ranked first in terms of importance. At the end, the structural model of confirmatory factor analysis and a conceptual model on farmers' adaptation strategies to climate change were articulated.

This research was done with the aim of investigating factors affecting the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities among the Herbal plant producers in North Khorasan province. The statistical population was all the herbal plant producers of North Khorasan province in 2019. Out of them, 209 farmers were selected by convenient sampling method. The main instrument for data collection was a questionnaire whose validity was evaluated by panel of experts, and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’, s alpha. The results of reliability evaluations revealed that the alpha coefficients for all constructs are greater than 0. 7. Data were analyzed using SPSS25. The results of Freidman test regarding factors affecting the identification of entrepreneurial opportunities indicated that three factors entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social networking, and social capital had the greatest importance in identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, respectively. According to the results of the Mann-whitney test, people with a previous cultivation experience of herbal plants have a higher self-image mean tan the others. Also, people who participated in entrepreneurial courses had great self-image. It should be mentioned that academic graduates had higher self-monitoring, self-image, social capital, social network, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy than the farmers with no academic degrees. Plus, the results obtained from the sign test revealed that only in the two structures of self-monitoring and social capital individuals often have a lower average mean than the population average mean. Moreover, the results of Pearson correlation coefficient showed significant and positive correlations among age and three variables prior knowledge, identifying entrepreneurial opportunities, and entrepreneurial consciousness.

Drought is one of the most important natural threats and disasters that has a significant impact on ecosystems, people's livelihoods, and the economic and social development of the countries. Farmers' vulnerability to drought can vary with respect to the location of living and the type of agricultural products. Therefore, most vulnerable areas should be identified to be able to better management of the drought phenomenon and mitigation of farmers' vulnerability. However, less attention has been paid to the social dimensions of farmers' vulnerability in the previous literature. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to assess social vulnerability towards drought across three counties of Kermanshah Province where in the intensity of drought is extremely high, moderate, and light. The sample size was determined based on Krejcie and Morgan (n= 375) and multi-stage stratified sampling was performed to select the individual samples. The formula proposed by May Bar and Valdes was applied to assess the social vulnerability of farmers. According to the results, it can be mentioned that the indices crop diversity, participation, stress, nutritional status, irrigation system method, warning system, and knowledge of drought response measures had the greatest impacts on the social vulnerability of farmers. In addition, farmers of Giulan-e-Gharb experienced the greatest social vulnerability.

Objectives of this study were to investigate the impacts of extension trainings on the yield and income of Durum wheat production which was carried out in Khouzestan province in 2018. Farmers were classified into two groups in terms of taking the advantages of extensional trainings: advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Sample size was estimated to be 132 farmers. In order to descriptive data analysis, the statistics including mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficients were employed. It should also be mentioned that statistics such as compare mean tests, Logit regression, and profitability analysis were used for inferential analysis. Data collection tool was questionnaire in this study. The results showed that the consumption of potash fertilizer, herbicides, and seed per hectare among advantaged farmers were respectively 9. 2, 15, and 9. 7% lower than the disadvantaged farmers. In addition, the average yield and income of advantaged wheat farmers was 9. 9 and 9. 4 percent higher than the disadvantaged group, respectively. In the end, the results revealed that the variables age, education, cultivation experience, yield, ownership, water source, cultivar, fertilizer consumption have significant positive effects on wheat farmers' participation in extensional training courses.

The purpose of this study is to design an intervention model of the Agricultural Bank in promoting the entrepreneurship in agricultural development using participatory models. In this regard, multivariate hierarchical analysis decision-making models were used to design the model with respect to the literature of public-private partnership in extension and education of innovation and entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. According to the basics of hierarchical analysis, the questionnaire filled up among 30 experts with a compatibility rate of 0. 2. For this purpose, a questionnaire including pairwise comparisons was developed. In order to confirm the face and content validities of the questionnaires, literature review and expert opinions were used. Hence, the reliability was approved through a consistency rate of less than 0. 1. Findings showed that financing mechanism (as a governmental partner), non-governmental technology promotion, international institutions, risky credits to receiving facilities, and the usage of extensional tools of start-up companies with the weights of 0. 393, 0. 289, 0. 321, 0. 389, and 0. 344 can respectively have significant effects on Agriculture Bank's partnership in education and extension of innovation and entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector.

Science and technology parks are of the most important tools to achieve a knowledge-based economy, and its main purpose is to help innovative entrepreneurs to establish companies and businesses. So that they can succeed and compete in national and international free markets with minimum risk. Agriculture is one of the important economic sectors of the country that needs technology development to overcome the existing challenges. Due to the small number of companies and agricultural knowledge-based enterprises, it is imperative to help the growth and development of these units by creating a supportive structure. Agricultural science and technology park can pave the way for this purpose by taking the advantage of the existing capacities. The purpose of this research was to strategic analysis of establishing specialized agricultural science and technology parks. For this purpose, using the points of view of experts, internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats to create these parks were identified and some potential development strategies were introduced. Comparison of internal and external space of agricultural science and technology parks showed that with coefficients 0. 14 and-0. 31, internal and external spaces are positive and negative, respectively. In other words, strengths prevail in the internal environment and threats in the external environment. The results of prioritizing strategies based on the weight of the constituents of each strategy also illustrated that with a weight of 0. 0754, competitive or diversity strategies (ST) ranked in first priority. In other words, it is necessary to provide space for the implementation of competitive or diversity strategies (ST) for the construction of an agricultural science and technology park.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the villagers’,food security situation in Zanjan County and to identify its relationship with their demographic characteristics. The statistics population of this research was all heads of households in rural areas of Zanjan County. The population was 25864 cases based on the general census in 2016. According to formula developed by Bartlett and his colleagues in 2001, a sample of 379 household heads was selected using a multistage sampling approach. A questionnaire was employed to collect the data. A panel of experts at University of Zanjan confirmed the face validity of the questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted to establish the reliability of the instrument. Cronbach alpha coefficients for the main scales of questionnaire were at appropriate level (higher than 0. 70). The software of SPSS and AMOS20 were used to analyze the data, and the results were presented in two sections of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of villagers’,food security based on Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) showed that the majority of respondents (67. 4 percent) suffering from severe food insecurity. The results of the correlation analysis revealed that there were significant negative relationships between food security and the variables agricultural experience, village distance to the nearest city, and village distance to the nearest market and shopping center. Whereas, there were significant positive relationships between food security and variables irrigated lands, monthly income from non-agricultural activities, and level of social interactions and participation. Findings of the comparison test indicated that there was a significant difference among villagers’,food security in terms of main occupation.

The entrepreneurial ecosystem cannot be imitated and reproduced and the regional and national advantages should be considered in the development of entrepreneurship, and copying of successful ecosystem examples like Silicon Valley cannot be done. Considering the importance of rural entrepreneurship in tourism and the shortcomings of the importance of tourism in rural development and reducing the challenges of villages in less developed areas, we should have systematic view. Present research seeks to analyze the factors affecting tourism entrepreneurship ecosystem using the modified Eisenberg model in rural areas of Iran. This study is an applied, descriptive, and survey-based research. The statistical population consisted of 285 tourism entrepreneurship policy makers, tourism entrepreneurs, and rural tourism business owners. The data collection tool was a closeended questionnaire. Its validity and reliability were confirmed by a panel of experts and pilot test. Based on the findings of this study, the dimensions of the conceptual model were appropriate from the perspective of elits. Analysis of the results revealed that there are a set of factors could affect the tourism entrepreneurship ecosystem in rural communities of Iran. These factors are including supportive, socio-cultural, policy governance, market-oriented, economic-financial, networking and communication, human capital, natural capacities, and infrastructure capacity factors, respectively.

The tourism industry promotes sustainable rural development in economic, cultural and environmental dimensions, as well as increasing employment, raising living standards, preventing rural migration, and reducing the growth of suburbanization in cities. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the potentials, strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats and seeks to provide strategies and strategies for sustainable tourism development in the study area and enjoy the benefits. Qualitative-quantitative research in from of applied research and descriptive and survey was the research method. The statistical population includes experts, tourism experts and regional managers who have been selected using purposive judgmental sampling method. Data collection tools are interviews and questionnaires. The present study was conducted in three general phases. In the first phase, after interviewing the experts, eight strengths, ten weaknesses, ten opportunities and eight threats were identified. In the second phase, after compiling evaluation tables of internal and external factors and after performing statistical calculations and overcoming strengths over weaknesses as well as overcoming opportunities over threats, offensive strategy was proposed as the best strategy and in the third phase, to implement this strategy, the following strategies were developed: Action to register the villages of Khorramabad county in the list of villages targeted for tourism using the existing capacities such as the existence of historical monuments, local food, hunting areas, mineral areas and medicinal plants,Creating a tourist tour program for tourists,Efforts to attract educated rural people to develop rural tourism,Creating startup businesses focusing on markets selling handicrafts, livestock, garden and plant products of villages and strategic planning for the implementation of natural and cultural tourism.