فصلنامه روستا و توسعه
سال نهم شماره 4 (پیاپی 36، زمستان 1385)

One issue that is raised as a constraint in rural development planning is related to budget allocation. Applying numerical taxonomy analysis, it is attempted to consider the contribution of ICT to growth and development in rural areas, and also review the experience of some countries in this field and thereby the villages in Tehran province have been ranked so that post offices can be transformed to ICT offices according to their prioritization. We selected the villages from 3371 hamlets based on 9 indicators: total population of village, the number of literates in the village, the number of students in the village, the ratio of literate to total population of village,, the ratio of students to total population of village, the ratio of employed to total population of village, the ratio of persons of ten years of age and more to total population of village, the ratio of ordinary household residence to total households, and the number of residential units. The present study shows among the villages in Tehran province 20 villages have higher priority for transforming their post offices to ICT offices.

The overall goal of this descriptive-correlational research is to examine the expectations of rural people from Islamic rural councils in Kermanshah county and also consider the factors that influence these expectations. The statistical population of this research consisted of the heads of the households in villages with councils in Kermanshah county. Using a multi stage sampling method 320 heads of households were selected. The main research tool is a two part questionnaire, which in the first part the rural people expectations and in the second part the personal and professional traits were measured and assessed. According to the study results, the most important expectations from councils include: general clean up of villages, crisis management in disasters, and collaboration with police to establish security in villages. Job and life satisfaction can explain 24 percent of variance in expectations from Islamic councils. According to the results it can be inferred that the attention to people’s expectations in different cultural, social, and economic dimensions can raise the rate of long term settlement in the villages and provides a context for participation of people for the realization of rural development.

On-farm Research (OFR) is complementary to on-station research and is a connecting bridge between farmers, research and extension. The variables that can influence OFR include: type of farmers (small, large, man, woman), farmer’s land, nature and degree of farmer’s involvement in research and farmer’s environment. The purpose of this kind of research is experimentation and confirmation of on-station results, generating and adapting modern technologies, and demonstration and diffusion of generated technology. OFR is more of experimental and occasionally of developmental type. The experiments are managed by researchers, farmers or jointly by researchers and farmers. Farmers involvement in research experiments varies from instrumental and passive to very active. Developmental OFR utilizes extension techniques and methods to introduce concepts or building farmers’ awareness; it needs, thus, involvement of researchers, farmers and extension agents. Developmental OFR has three stages: exploratory, intermediate and pilot. Technologies under experimentation in this OFR can include one of these three forms: a) single component, such as chemical fertilizer or one variety of a crop; b) package, including independent components such as improved seeds, chemical fertilizers, and herbicides; and c) composite, including several interactive components such as alley farming. Transforming OFR from a single component to composite necessitates gradual reduction and omission of the gap between agricultural research and extension. Recommendation for the dissemination of new technology should be carried out through leaders of village community, organizing public meetings and explaining the benefits of technology. Utilization of posters, demonstration of methods, results, and successful examples can strongly affect the adoption of technology by farmers. Attracting farmer’s participation and generating a sense of confidence in them, training, practicality of research, and linking research and extension can be counted as most important advantages of OFR. The most important disadvantage is the lack of complete control over research subject by researcher.

In this paper social capital is a concept with two dimensions: structural and cognitive. The structural dimension of social capital is measured by using four indicators: group membership, reciprocity, differences in characteristics between people and exclusion from social services while the cognitive dimension is measured by using trust, solidarity/cohesion and conflict. The impacts of social capital and contextual factors such as demographic, socio-economic and personal variables are evaluated against satisfaction from quality of life. In order to analyze the data and examine the hypothesis we use two statistical technique, i.e Pearson Correlation coefficient and multivariate regression analysis. Data was collected from 12 villages by using sampling method and interviewing 509 head of households. From 20 hypotheses 12 were confirmed that five of them were related to social capital. The overall regression model was significant which confirmed the main argument of the study. It means high level of social capital would lead to high level of satisfaction from the quality of life. Therefore, social capital is a better predictor of the satisfaction from the quality of life than contextual factors.

Villages have a vital role in biological, demographic and economic equilibrium of societies from the late times; thus the issue of integrated rural development is the main focus of many studies. Rural development has a special position in modern theories of development. These theories consider the enhancement of social participation as the main tool for development. Today, social participation is not only an end but also a mean to development which its realization necessitates the utilization of powerful instruments such as mass media. It is an indicator of development and a contributing factor to it. The focus of participatory theory is on local media instead of national media in rural development projects. But a few decades of experience in Iran indicate they had not a desirable performance. The objective of this study is to examine the structure and contents of television programmes in Ardabil provincial network with respect to their consistency with social, economic, cultural, psychological, functional, and structural features of rural society in one hand, and their consistency with the social participation of rural population on the other hand. Research results indicated the contents of these programmes were not consistent with the mentioned dimensions and with the exception of economic consistency the impacts of other variables on the social participation of rural population were significant. Rural development requires developed media that consider development issue in all of its dimensions as the main agenda for activity and planning.

Research management is among unique activities.“Weakness of management structure” was mentioned as one of the ten main problems in many research institutions in an Asian Productivity Organization Seminar. Various studies in the country indicate “weakness in research management causes low efficiency and performance in research institutions. There were no clear-cut criteria for the selection of managers for research units in JS and this would occasionally lead to questioning the selection of these managers. It is necessary to find logical and value based criteria in a framework that is appropriate to the nature and functions of research units. Attaining a managerial position requires occupational and personal characteristics such as knowledge, skills and attitudes. From these, the deterministic skills for a research manager include: technical, human, perceptional, programming and problem solving. In this study the skill coefficients were measured as an appropriate tool for the selection of research manager in the form of a function the variables in which are management skills. These coefficients are explained based on average views of JS research community in relation to 33 factors related to triad skills (excluding technical skill). Statistical population is composed of two groups of personnel from 50 centres, institutes and independent research stations of JS. The first group consists of 1139 managers and researchers with Msc and higher qualification, and the second group consists of 5001 employees with Bsc and lower qualification excluding wage labours and illiterates. Probabilities of selection proportionate to size were assigned to each centre/institute/independent station such that the sample size were 288 and 356 for the first and second group respectively. The reliability of the questionnaire could be seen in the computed Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.90. In this function coefficients of human skills (X2), perceptional (X3), design and problem solving (X4) are defined in the form of a mathematical equation for three groups of research managers. It determines a total criterion(S) for each managerial group that has a value between 15.83 to 17.73. An eligible and acceptable manager can be selected by using this criterion and measuring technical skills.

Kerman is the largest province in the country and agriculture is one of the main economic sectors in this province. In this study the value of marginal production was computed for factors of production of 9 major crops in Kerman province. The sample size consisted of 679 cultivators in year 2002. The 9 crops composed of wheat, barley, maize, chickpea, beet root, sunflower seed, lentils, cotton and potato. The value of marginal production for each factor was computed by using factor prices, and estimating Cobb-Douglas and Transcendental production function. The present allocation pattern of production function. The present allocation pattern of production factors were examined based on the values of marginal production, price of the production factors and economic principles. The results indicated the existing pattern is not optimal and a reallocation of resources can lead to a rise in profit and income of farmers.

It is not possible to develop people but we must provide an environment that facilitates their development and advancement by themselves. In recent years, expert- induced research like vertical development has been questioned very intensively and the issue of the local community’s role in research is strengthened. In this sense Iran is no exception, though it is occurring with a time lag. In other words, main stream research have been challenged in parallel to the growing questioning and criticisms of current top down approaches. The time passed when development workers and researchers (outsiders) research, plan and implement “for” people. It is necessary that these activities will be carried out with people and even by them. Farmers have performed these activities usually but outsiders have not acknowledged the research and development activities carried out by them formally.The main argument of this paper is to identify the contributing factors affecting rural development, i.e., research. We started by a critical review of the main stream research, followed by a presentation of participatory research and its most important approaches. Based on our experiences about participatory research we attempted to recognize the constraints and challenges to participatory research in Iran and to provide recommendations that will improve and facilitate participatory research.It should be recognized that the systematic participation of farmers in research process is still in its infancy and we have a long road a head of us to enhance and improve research activities. Prior to initiation of a research with people, researchers and development workers should start to educate themselves. The success of farmers participation in research and development projects requires a restructuring plan that should be formed through the evolution of organizational culture which could not happen quickly.