JOURNAL OF RURAL RESEARCH
Year:2017 | Volume:8 | Issue:1|Papers Count:11

Rapid urban population growth of Iran in recent decades, has expanded physical boundaries of cities and annexation of rural settlements around the cities within the formal boundaries of cities. The annexation and integration of surrounding villages in the city, according to the spatial and temporal conditions has unique features and effects. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the social, economic, environmental, and spatial effects of annexation of four villages of Kazem Abad, Karim Abad, Khalifa, and Khani Abad to Nurabad City in Lorestan Province. To achieve the objectives of this study we used the results of the general census of population and housing, satellite images, and data obtained from household surveys using a researcher-made questionnaire. The results show that the adjunction of villages to cities is a complex, multi-dimensional and multi-stage process, which according to spatial and temporal conditions need specific measures. Evaluating the subjective effects of annexation show that in most indicators, the conditions of local residents have improved after the annexation. Among the components of factor analysis, four components of physical condition of village, the level of production and motivation in agriculture and livestock activities, access to facilities and infrastructures are the most important predictors for the level of satisfaction from annexation of village to city.

One of the recent achievements to reduce the ecological footprint of human is creation, expansion, and rehabilitation of a large number of small and sustainable habitats called ecovillage. In this context, many developed and developing countries pioneered and scored extraordinary measures. To identify and compare the development patterns of such communities, it is very important to make shorter way to achieve this goal for other countries. It is the concern of most governments in Iran to benefit from an efficient model of sustainable development. Hence, the current study used the qualitative research approach and qualitative content analysis websites of the world's ecovillages, an inductive approach seeks to provide a model for the development of ecovillages of this country. For this purpose, from a random sample of 50 ecovillages in the developing and developed countries, 25 were extracted and the coding approach in qualitative content analysis was used for them. Finally, motion patterns and development of ecovillages of the developing countries over time were designed, analyzed, and compared to the trend in the developed countries, and a model was proposed for the development of ecovillages in Iran.

Entrepreneurship development is one of most effective solutions to the economic and sociocultural development in the disadvantaged areas. This holds true to such an extent that it is currently regarded as an elixir to eliminate both poverty and deprivation. As a qualitative study following a grounded theory approach, the current study aimed at recognizing the essential components of rural business environment in Manoojan County and determining the factors that influence rural entrepreneurship in the area.The aim was to provide a conceptual method out of the extracted factors to improve the efficiency and the productivity of policies and plans adapted by the institutions involved in rural entrepreneurship development. Accordingly, a total of 15 participants comprised of 3 groups; ie. the rural entrepreneurs of Manoojan County, local officials and expert staff, and non–local experts and authorities were selected to be studied through the non-probability (theoretical, purposive, and snowball) sampling methods. The required data were gathered trough 3 instruments; ie, interviews, field observations, and archived review. The collected data were then analyzed using a 3-step coding mechanism: open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.The findings well revealed that the major factors affecting rural entrepreneurship development in Manoojancounty fell into 9 categories as individual, sociocultural, infrastructural, natural and ecological, legal, educational, institutional, political, and economic. The interactive mechanism of the factors was in conformity with the grounded theory, and paradigm model under 3 theoretical components.

The current paper aimed at assessing the capacities and limitations of the model ranges in South Khorasan province (SWOT) that consisted of four components of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Method study is based on objective, applied based on the nature and methods of descriptive analytic. That's rangelands components associated with these concepts were determined. Fifty experts in organizations and research centers associated with different areas of expertise. A weighted ranking based on SWOT, evaluated the importance of these factors to determine the positive and negative points rangelands were identified. The results showed that the potential for development and solve the problems of South Khorasan rangeland is somewhat provided. Based on the most important factor of strengths, doing point operations ranges with value 0.548. The most important strength, the factor of type dominant livestock and Surplus depends to range with value of 0.384. Most important opportunity to have traditional and indigenous knowledge to restoring ranges with value 0.388 and Most important threat is the lack of precipitation and the continuing drought and loss of valuable rangeland production potential with value 0.4. Offensive strategy was determined as the best strategy for the management and development of ranges.

Food security is a key element in individuals' mental, psychological, and physical health. Meanwhile, the food insecurity is a serious problem, especially in the underdeveloped and developing countries. Although availability, access, utilization, and stability are noted in the food security definitions, it seems that there are factors beyond the framework, which affect food security. Food insecurity depends on the consumption behavior and its underlying factors. In the meantime, the feeding pattern and habits, derived from the culture and knowledge of nutrition, also affect human health. The current study, in terms of the nature, is a quantitative research, and in terms of purpose is an applied research. The information was collected by a 2-part questionnaire including the researcher-made questionnaire and the household food insecurity access scale (HFIAS). A number of 258 heads of rural households was selected as the study sample from 11 villages in Kermanshah County, Iran, using the multistage sampling method. The results showed that while more than 58.5% of the rural households were in food security or mild food insecurity status, about 14.7% of the households faced with severe food insecurity. Results of structural equation modeling showed that nutrition knowledge had a negative and significant impact on food insecurity. The results also showed that nutrition knowledge had an indirect effect on food insecurity through nutrition culture, which should be considered in the food security studies.

With regard to the role of children in agricultural activities, the current study aimed at analyzing the attitudes of experts towards the advantages and disadvantages of rural child labor in agricultural activities. The study was conducted by Q-methodology; The study population included the experts of Sayed Yaqub Health Center of Mahidasht County, Iran, and the staff of Charity Committee of Kermanshah County. Totally, 16 experts were selected by the purposeful sampling method. Results showed that the first group believed that children labor deprives the children from childhood activities. The other group believed that child labor lessens the focus of children in the class; on the other hand, strengthens the culture of the region. The third group believed that agricultural activities are among the factors that cause responsibility in children. The fourth group believed that child labor, due to the independence of children, causes joint diseases. The fifth group had a different viewpoint about child labor; they believed that child labor makes the child more agile from the physical point of view, but causes emotional depression. It can be said that the child labor phenomenon in rural areas is associated with the nature of pastoralism. Child labor contributes to economic affairs, households, and family by cultural truism rural residents. But in Iran can be the valve kind of transfer, age of onset, the quantity and quality of work and children's rights into action.

Currently, according to the various challenges of sustainable agriculture development principles such as competitive market, new technologies, and environment protection, developing sustainable entrepreneurship in agriculture sector is introduced as a key and an effective strategy to achieve agricultural sustainability. For this purpose, it is essential to provide appropriate policies on economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The current study aimed at analyzing the status of dimensions and elements of sustainable entrepreneurship in macro and sectorial agricultural policies of Islamic Republic of Iran. Content analysis research method was used to analyze the policies. Hierarchical additive weighting method (HAW) and the Shannon entropy weighting method were used to prioritize the 5-year development plan. The results showed that the entrepreneurship term was used in the Islamic Republic of Iran policy documents from the second development plan. But, sustainable entrepreneurship term is not used yet. Therefore, the sustainable entrepreneurship thought should be entered into the national policy. Due to entering the sustainability and entrepreneurial thought, and the terms related to the components of sustainable entrepreneurship in the policy documents of I.R.I, there is no obstacle to enter sustainable entrepreneurship thought in macro and sectorial policies including the constitutional law and Iran outlook 1404 and its policies, and 5 year development plans. According to the status of importance of sustainable entrepreneurship dimensions in 5 year development plan documents, the second plan is in first priority and then there are first, fifth, forth, and third plans.

New policies for agricultural transition can only be effective if the policy is understood and adopted at the farm level. In countries such as Iran cultural factors embodied in identity can provide major obstacles to change because traditional and religious beliefs are important in everyday decision-making. Consequently the need to understand identity as a key factor is important in an Iranian context. self-beliefs about being a particular type of person, the roles that such a person should play and commitment to that particular identity play an important role in determining farmers’ behavioral choice – particularly when ‘new’ behaviours challenge existing beliefs about "good farming" as in the case of regime change. Understanding these ‘identities’ and the roles associated with them can help us both address the issue of heterogeneity within the farming communities and identify which behaviours are culturally important and therefore may require specific consideration in policy formulation to promote transition. To address this, the aim of this study is to employ q-methodology as a means of generating a typology of farmers with specific identities. This study will be based on existing data gathered in a study of farmers in Khuzestan province, in southern Iran. Based on the review of the agricultural literature, interviews with farmers and interviews with agricultural specialists, the study constructed a concourse with 120 statements. Then, based on ranking by experts, we selected 43 q-samples from this expert ranking. Fifty farmers were selected through purposeful sampling (good farmers introduced by local agricultural officers) as a P-set, completed the Q-sort procedure. Data analysis identified a number of heterogeneous farmer groups based on their identity.

Journals are considered as one of the main forms of knowledge transfer in scientific research and in the international community have their own spotlights. According to the progress of scientific articles, scientific-research journals, as one of most attainable citation sources are always used by researchers and students. Content analysis method enables the researcher to obtain expression and critical evaluation of research projects, regardless of their results. Journal of Rural Research is one of the scientific publications in the field of rural issues that started its career in 2010 aimed at disseminating basic and applied research in the field of rural studies with the innovative and high-quality interdisciplinary approach. All studies in the field of geographical sciences were the spatial nature allocated to a part of land as the study area. Accordingly, most studies specified a range from small to large scale divisions. Provincial scattering studies are on the map. Kermanshah province, Iran, with 29 articles is in the first place. Then Kurdistan (14), Isfahan, and Tehran (13) are in the follows, respectively. The provinces of Qom, Ardebil, with up to 2 papers had lowest benefited. The results of the current study showed that although the number of female writers in 6 periods had a rising trend, generally about one-third of the writers were female and other two-thirds were males. According to the provincial dispersions, Qom and Ardebil provinces had paid less attention to the need to achieve the status of villages in the areas and more studies should be done on them.

Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) represent participation of the people and pave the way of sustainable development objectives. This research mainly aimed to investigate the conditions and outcomes of the development of local NGOs in the villages of Roshtkhar County. The required data for the study were obtained through semi-structured interviews with a selected sample of founders and active members of NGOs (n=27). Using conventional coding process of Grounded theory, the interview texts were analyzed and the findings of the analysis matrix template were compiled by 85 open codes, 24 axial codes, and 7 selective codes. With regard to the designed pattern, NGOs in rural areas of Roshtkhar County have been founded by certain objectives and factual conditions such as economic and social factors as well as influence of internal and external factors, and also context conditions like ecological, cultural, and religious ones. Thus, the expansion of these organizations in susceptible rural areas has resulted in various social, economic, and environmental outcomes. Most important problems facing NGOs in rural areas are people’s misunderstanding of the functions of NGOs in the village, shortage of budget, cultural poverty, NGOs’ unsuccessful previous experiences, and negative attitudes towards NGOs in rural areas.