VILLAGE AND DEVELOPMENT
Year:2021 | Volume:23 | Issue:4 (92)|Papers Count:7

The importance of rural tourism in today's world is becoming more pronounced with increasing leisure time and the limitations of urban life. There are many attractions in the villages that provide a great capacity for urban or non-native visitors to spend their leisure time. The purpose of this study was to analyze the factors affecting the rural tourism supply. The statistical population included the rural people who are engaged in agriculture and have the potential to provide or increase their rural and agricultural attraction services. The statistics and data used in this study were collected by field survey in a stratified simple sampling method using Cochran formula through the field interviews and completed 100 questionnaires in 24 villages of 12 provinces of Iran. Given the qualitative nature of the dependent variable, an ordinal logit model was used to analyze the data and identify the factors affecting the supply of rural tourism services. The study results showed that the variety of products and services, education, farm size and experience had positive effects on the rural tourism supply while the farmers’ desire to enter the tourism industry decreased by the increase in their ages. Enhancing attention of planners and policymakers to rural people and farmers who choose tourism as a second occupation is among others recommended by this study.

The operationalization of earthquake risk management objectives in rural areas requires a desirable management process and pattern. Therefore, this study aimed to desirable pattern of natural hazard risk management (earthquake) in rural areas using mathematical models, strategic management planning (SMP) and quantitative strategic management planning (QSMP). It was a descriptive and applied research, the required information of which were collected in both library and field methods. Initially, 19 appropriate indicators (such as housings quality, buildings age, population density, earthquake magnitude) were identified and weighted to rank the risks of vulnerability in the studied area and the data were analyzed after collecting their statistics and information. Then, the perspectives of respondents including 386 household members and 29 individuals from the local institutions (rural council and administrator) in 29 sample villages from a selected county in Qazvin province of Iran as well as the views of 15 specialists on management of earthquake risk and planning to reduce vulnerability were received, described and analyzed through 69 items within a questionnaire. The results showed that the desired integrated and sustainable pattern of earthquake risk management in the rural areas (with 100 percent allocation of scores) consisted of three stages including before (evaluation, prevention and reduction) with 50 percent, during (emergency response and initial rehabilitation and evaluation) with 21 percent and after (reconstruction and cleaning, rehabilitation and evaluation) with 29 percent of the total scores. Finally, understanding and promoting the basic components of earthquake risk management as key elements in each stage of earthquake risk management were emphasized.

The main purpose of this study was to identify and develop a model for food security of rural households by applying the grounded theory approach. It was an applied research in terms of the objective and a mixed exploratory study in terms of data collection method. The participants consisted of all the experts familiar with food security issues (including nutrition, health, agricultural extension and education, and food and medicine experts as well as the typical farmers and experts of Agriculture-Jahad Organization of Ilam province). The purposeful and snowball sampling methods were used to select 18 experts of the participants, based on theoretical saturation criterion. The data were analyzed through the three stages of open, axial and selective coding. Findings revealed that the studied model consisted of6 categories, 16 sub-categories and 62 concepts, including: causal conditions (health and environmental threats), contextual factors (household food patterns, socio-cultural conditions), axial category (existence of enough food, food availability, food intake stability, established food health), strategies (supply healthy food with proper consumption pattern, crisis management, sustainable agricultural development, increasing educational and support services), environmental interventions (welfare and economic support, management support and programming, educational and health support) and outcomes (stopping the decline and improving the health and nutrition of rural consumers). The results of coding stages and analyses with a qualitative approach in the whole theory led to the model design. Finally, the conceptual model and components of the model were presented along with the related components and indicators.

This applied study aimed at providing a framework to identify preconditions for successful entry of rural women into the field of entrepreneurship. It was conducted in a descriptive-survey method and the required data were collected through library studies and a researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population consisted of those women, from the villages with more than 1, 000 populations in North Khorasan province of Iran, who were selected in a non-probabilistic sampling method; and among them, 383 people were selected as the sample, according to Morgan's table. In this research, structural equations were used for data analysis and Friedman test was used for ranking indicators. The findings suggested that the successful entry of rural women into the field of entrepreneurship required an "entrepreneurial capacity-building" through the creation of "rural micro-funds, facilitation of employment loans, online sales of products, permanent supply exhibitions of products, formation of Cooperative for Rural Women Entrepreneurs, guaranteed purchase of the products, Association of Rural Women Entrepreneurs Rural Creativity and Innovation Centers.

Environmental crises, degradation of natural resources and reduction of social, economic and environmental capital in the fields of agriculture and natural resources show that man in the face of nature, has gone beyond the limits of morality. This study aimed to analyze ethical considerations among farmers in Sonqur County of Kermanshah province in Iran using the theory of fuzzy logic. The statistical population of the study consisted of farmers in eight sub-districts of the county (N=18917); and among them, based on Morgan’ s sampling table, 375 farmers were selected as the sample in a two-stage cluster sampling method. The fuzzy logic method and MATLAB software were used to classify the sub-districts in terms of ethicality. The study findings showed that in the field of environmental ethics, all of the farmers of the studied sub-districts with the high degree of membership were at the low ethical level; and in terms of agricultural ethics, Abbarik (33. 8) and Satar (37. 9) sub-districts with high degree of membership were at the moderate ethical level and other sub-districts with various degrees of membership were placed at low level; and overall, in terms of environmental-agricultural ethics, Satar (43. 5), Abbarik (38. 8), Gaverood (33. 6), Bavaleh (32. 5) and Agahan (32. 3) sub-districts, respectively, were ranked in the first to fifth positions and with high membership degree were placed at the moderate level and other sub-districts with high membership degree were placed at the low level of ethicality. Accordingly, the study findings and the proved possibility of applying the fuzzy logic in the field of agricultural ethics suggested that the decisions made on the basis of this model could be included in the agenda of managers and planners of agricultural development; in this regard, some suggestions were provided by this study.

In the scientific literature of entrepreneurship, ‘ education’ is introduced as a very important tool for increasing entrepreneurial skills. This study aimed at analyzing the impact of technical and vocational training on strengthening the entrepreneurial skills of rural people. For this purpose, a descriptive-analytical methodology was used through document and survey study in the villages of Jovein County of Iran. The statistical population of the study included 100 entrepreneurs who had passed the technical and vocational training courses. Single-sample t-test and regression test were used to analyze the information. The t-test results showed that the technical skills (by a mean of 20/93) were more suitable than other skills; in other words, the respondents were more satisfied with the technical skills in the training courses, which is in line with the missions of the technical and vocational education. The examination results of relationship between the variables showed that there were significant relationships between the duration of training courses, the number of training courses and the entrepreneurial skills; in other words, increasing the duration and number of training courses would result in enhanced entrepreneurial skills. In addition, the value of the correlation coefficient between the variables (R=0/733) indicated that there was a strong correlation between the set of independent variables and the dependent variable. Therefore, it might be concluded that the technical and vocational trainings were effective in strengthening the technical skills of the rural people interested in participating in these training courses.

Employment and production in rural areas largely depend on the status of labor market indicators in these areas. These indicators can greatly reflect the extent of rural development as well. The purpose of this study was to classify the rural areas in Kermanshah province of Iran based on labor market indicators. It was conducted in a descriptive-analytical method. The required data were based on the population and housing census of the country in 2016 and analyzed by using TOPSIS, SPSS and GIS software. In addition, 30 key economic indicators of the province were analyzed through TOPSIS and cluster analysis techniques. The study results showed that in terms of the labor market indices of the rural areas, Qasr-e-Shirin and Javanrood were respectively the most developed and non-developed counties of Kermanshah province. Therefore, it could be suggested that the provincial budgeting system would allocate more funds to the undeveloped areas identified by such indices.