Rural Development Strategies
Year:2015 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:8

Agriculture engineering and technical consulting services were initially established in 2008 by the establishment of a network of NGOs in order to reduce the problems of the agricultural sector in line with privatization and downsizing of the government. The main objective of this study was to investigate the factors that affect the success of technical and agricultural engineering consulting firms in the Isfahan province (2012). The statistical population of this research consisted of members of the boards of directors and the managing directors of such firms in the Isfahan province. The study sample consisted of 130 subjects from the members of boards of directors and the managing directors were who selected by using Cochran formula. The field data required was been collected through questionnaires and interviews. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by experts and its reliability was confirmed by the use of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and it was calculated to be 0.83. The results of research showed that the success rate of technical and agricultural engineering consulting firms was evaluated to be 53.2% at the medium. The result of multiple regression analysis showed that about 40% of the success rate factors for of technical and agricultural engineering consulting firms based on the Beta index could be attributed to passing training courses in management procedures (0.382), giving financial rewards to members for optimal performance (0.278), number of contracts with other public and private organizations (0.249) and having entrepreneurship characteristics (0.220).

The main purpose of this descriptive- correlative survey was to identify and analyze the barriers to organizational entrepreneurship development in rural development cooperatives of the Zanjan Province. The statistical population of the subjects under study consisted of all of the main members of administrative boards in the cooperatives of the Zanjan Province (N=335). According to the Bartlett et al. (2001) table, a sample size of 120 was selected using a stratified random sampling technique. A questionnaire was used to collect data. A panel of experts confirmed the validity of the questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted to establish the reliability of the instrument. The Cronbach’salpha coefficient for the main scales of the questionnaire was higher than 0.75. The descriptive results showed that four variables had the highest priority. These include the strict rules for payment of loans by public and private banks to cooperatives; lack of adequate capital in the cooperatives and their lack of access to credit and financial resources; shortcomings in labor laws and lack of necessary context for group activities and team work in the cooperatives. The results of factor analysis revealed that four factors namely, structural, environmental, cognitive- knowledge, lack of effective organizational culture, lack of support and individual explained 61.38 percent of the total variances of the barriers to organizational entrepreneurship development in cooperatives.

Proper planning and implementation of sound programs and strategies is vital to agricultural development. Recognizing current problems and strengths of any section is required in the first step. One of the most important problems in the Iranian agriculture sector is land fragmentation. The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to investigate wheat farmers’ attitude and land consolidation solutions from their viewpoints in the Hashtrood Township in year 2013. A group of experts from different majors confirmed the validity of the questionnaire used as our research tool and by conducting a pilot test and the Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to be equal to 0.85 for attitude scale and 0.8 for solution scale, and hence its reliability was verified. The target population consisted of all of the wheat farmers in the Hashtrood Township in the East Azerbaijan province 186 of whom were selected as samples from 15 villages based on Cochran’s sampling formula and the multi stage randomized sampling method. An analysis of the attitudes of wheat farmers revealed that 67.7 and 32.3 percent of them have unfavorable and neutral attitudes towards land consolidation. Also, there is a significant positive relationship between farming experience and their attitude in land consolidation, but there is a negative relationship between it and their total land segments. Factor analysis of data revealed that four factors named as deterrent actions, cooperative-common actions, supportive infrastructural actions and motivational extension actions explained 59.9% of land consolidation solutions by wheat farmers.

This paper aims to assess sustainable farmlands management in the Malekan County. The target population consisted of wheat growers among which 162 farmers were selected according to the multistage cluster selection method. The research tool used was a questionnaire whose face validity was confirmed by comments from faculty members and experts in the Malekan Agri- Jihad and its reliability was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha (average 0.71). Sustainability was measured by establishing composite index for six components of sustainable land management. The results of assessing sustainable land management revealed that 19.1% of the farmers were in an unsustainable situation, 34% of them were in a fairly unsustainable situation, 26.5% of them were in a fairly sustainable situation and 20.4% of them were in a sustainable situation. The results of correlation coefficient showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between age and farming experience with “stability and acceptability”, land size and farm income with “stability, acceptability and technical knowledge”, wheat yield and consumed fertilizer with “security”, land plots with “acceptability” and using farm machinery with “productivity, stability, acceptability and technical knowledge”. There is also a negative and significant relationship between non-farm income and “productivity” and consumed fertilizers and “security”.

Testing soil is recognized to be an important practice for sustainable use of nutrients, which has been introduced to Iranian grape farmers as an innovation for over a decade. Its adoption and utilization may be influenced by receiving information from different sources. This study is performed to introduce these information sources that may influence the adoption of soil testing innovation by grape farmers. Using a survey, a sample of 260 out of 3942 grape farmers of the Khorramdarreh Township was selected using a stratified sampling technique and data was collected by structured interviews using a questionnaire. The content and face validity of the questionnaire was discussed and reviewed by a panel of experts consisting of university staff and agricultural professionals. Its reliability was also assessed through a pilot study and its main constructs were approved to be reliable using the Cronbach’s alpha test (measures between 0.71 and 0.84). Less than half of the grape farmers conducted soil testing in their vineyards. A regression analysis showed that variables such as contact of the farmers with model grape producers, Poster Received, publications and listening to radio programs and farmers’ education havea significant positive impact on soil testing innovation adoption. Therefore, both interpersonal and mass media can have a positive effect on farmers to adopt this innovation.

Extension experts who play an active role at the operational level are required to have some indispensable competencies to enable them to provide the rural community with some high quality, -applicable and important educational programs. Accordingly, the study sought to analyze the components of professional qualifications for agricultural extension experts’ operational level. This study is a descriptive and survey research. The statistical population (Agricultural Extension Experts in Operational Levels) was comprised of 290 persons. And the proportional stratified sampling using Krejcie-Morgan Table was applied and 165 subjects were selected. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire, and its content validity was approved by agricultural extension experts and by using KMO coefficient and Bartlett’s Test giving a reliability of (KMO=0.737). The data analysis results showed that seven extracted factors of (research factors, technical-professional factors, teaching factors, managerial factors, personality factors, communication factors and virtual technology factors) explain 63.691% of the total variance of the professional competencies for agriculture extension experts’ operational levels in the province. The findings indicate that based on scientific methods of research, assessment of needs, planning and assessment, and in-service training workshops implementation for experts seem to be necessary. Distinctive attention should be practiced by Agriculture Organization to improve agents’ skills in a variety of crops cultivation and in working with software and agricultural applications.

Rural development is one of the most important processes that is considered in different countries. Rural development needs to recognize the different important components. Social welfare is one of the important components using which enables us to reduce the problems of villages. By this issue we can reduce many problems in rural areas. This study tries to assess and determine the level of social welfare in rural areas of the Kheir area in the Estahban province. The research method that is used is based on descriptive - analysis and field methods (questionnaires and documents). The sample size is 313 persons that reside in twelve villages. The sample size was selected by the Cochran’s model. In order to analyze data, we also used both statistical methods (descriptive and inferential statistics) and TOPSIS and Morris methods. The results show that social welfare varies between villages in case study. This value is between 0.11– 0.95. Social welfare in the rural areas is higher than the average (0.596). The results also show that there is a significant relationship between social welfare and two criteria: population and services. Also there is a statistically significant indirect relationship between distance from the center of township and social welfare.

In this study different irrigation methods of wheat in the Fars province were analyzed using metafrontier approach technological gap ratio. For this purpose, information about 100 farmers that were interviewed randomly in 2013 was used. The sample farms were divided into two groups (with and without sprinkler irrigation systems) based on the different irrigation methods. The results of estimating the regional frontier production function showed that the technical efficiency for the group with sprinkler irrigation system and the group without sprinkler irrigation system is 0.87 and 0.82, respectively. It means that these producers with a certain amount of average input produce about 87 percent and 82 percent of the product, respectively that could possibly be produced using the same amount of input and available technology. The technical efficiency relative to the metafrontier production function in the group with sprinkler irrigation system and in the group without sprinkler irrigation is 0.84 and 0.72, respectively. The technological gap ratio for the above two groups is 0.96 and 0.88, which means that the sprinkler irrigation system has a better technical performance, and it has a higher technological gap ratio when compared with the with no irrigation system. This is a promising point for policy makers in the field of agriculture since production level could be improved by improvement in the production techniques and proper use of available resources. The results of the factors that are effective in acceptance of technology of sprinkler irrigation system that was evaluated using the Probit model have showed that variables of farmer experiment, their attending extension classes, farmer’s property, loan, risky propensities and ownership of wells all have a positive and significant effecton acceptance of technology of sprinkler irrigation systems.