Prioritizing the obstacles and challenges to achieving the goals of the first to the fifth programs of social, economic and cultural development of the Islamic republic of Iran in the Sector of Agriculture and Natural Resources

Iran's economy has been managed by development programs for more than half a century. Among the various economic sectors, the agricultural sector, owing to its place in the Iranian economy, has been of considerable importance in development programs after the Islamic Revolution. In each program, according to its time, important policies and tasks are defined for it. Despite policymakers' continued emphasis on the importance of the agricultural sector, this sector has not had a great impact on the growth and development of the country yet. The many challenges it faces indicate a failure to achieve the goals mentioned in the development plans. Therefore, it is necessary to study the pathology of the development programs and examines the reasons as why the goals of the development programs have not been achieved. Therefore, this study aims to determine and prioritize the obstacles and challenges facing the first to the fifth programs of social, economic and cultural development of the Islamic republic of Iran in the sectors of agriculture and natural resources.

The present study is applied in terms of purpose and analytical-descriptive in terms of nature. The data were collected through library work and survey. The data collection tool in this research was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed using a review of sources related to the rules of development programs and conducting qualitative interviews. The validity and reliability were assessed for the research tool. The validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by a five-member panel of experts. To evaluate the reliability of the questionnaire, Cronbach's alpha test was used with the estimate of 0.85. After the modification and the validity and reliability test, the final questionnaire was developed for a hierarchical analysis. The final questionnaire consisting of three sections was designed according to the purpose of the research. In the first part, the individual characteristics of the studied sample were examined. In the second part, the questions were raised for pair comparison and determination of the degree of importance of the main criteria, including the six main factors of failure to achieve the goals of development programs. The third section discusses the pairwise comparison and determining the degree of importance of the sub-criteria including 58 sub-components of failure to achieve the goals of development programs in the agricultural sector. The statistical population of this study included the agricultural experts in organizations and universities as well as producers. The non-probability and snowball sampling methods were used to collect information. Using this method, 50 people were identified and studied. Finally, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) decision-making method was used to conduct the research.

The research findings were reviewed in two sections. In the first part, the demographic characteristics of the studied sample were examined. They included age, gender, work and educational characteristics. In the second part, in order to prioritize the obstacles and challenges of not achieving the goals of development programs in agriculture and natural resources, the AHP method was used. The first step in the AHP method was to create a hierarchical structure from the items under study, namely the objectives, criteria and sub-criteria as shown in Figure 1. In the next step, the incompatibility coefficient (IR) was used to examine the consistency in the judgments.  According to the results of the pairwise comparison, the adjustment rate of the main criteria was 0.00352 Given that it was less than 0.1, the results of the main criteria were optimal. The compatibility rate of the six sub-criteria was less than 0.1 too, and the results were confirmed and lay in the desired range. After the compatibility rate of the composite matrices was confirmed, the ranking of the criteria and the sub-criteria was analyzed. Based on the results of prioritization of the main criteria in the order of importance, structural-managerial barriers with a relative weight of 0.228, economic barriers with a relative weight of 0.200, political barriers with a relative weight of 0.156, scientific barriers with a relative weight of 0.153, executive barriers with a relative weight of 0.137, and socio-cultural barriers with a relative weight of 0.127 were ranked from one to six.

This study aims to determine and prioritize the obstacles and challenges to the achievement of the goals of the first to the fifth programs of social, economic and cultural development of Iran in the agriculture sector. According to the objectives of the research, 58 sub-criteria were identified and analyzed under six main criteria. In order to conduct the research, the decision-making method of AHP was used, and the opinions of 50 relevant specialists were considered. The results of the pairwise comparison and prioritization of the main criteria of the research showed that structural-managerial barriers are of the first importance, and economic barriers are of the second importance. Also, political barriers, scientific barriers, executive barriers and socio-cultural barriers were in the third to the sixth priority respectively. In general, there are major reasons for the failure to achieve the goals of the development programs in the agriculture sector in economic, executive and structural domains. The most important financial and economic problems are the lack of capital resources, the reduction of government budgets and the lack of various financing models. As executive and managerial problems, one can mention government management, the existence of cumbersome laws, the worn-out executive system and the lack of meritocracy. In the field of structural and infrastructural problems, there is the lack of a purposeful support system in relation to infrastructure development, education and research, insurance system and product support.