Identifying Opportunities of Agricultural Service Businesses (Case Study: Rural Cooperatives of Ilam Province)

The aim of this study was to identify the opportunities of agricultural production businesses in the rural cooperatives of Ilam province. This study is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative research in terms of research method. In this study, the Delphi method was used. The target population of this study includes; employees working in the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Ilam province and cities, employees working in the management of rural cooperatives of the province and cities, CEO and board of directors of the union and rural cooperatives, board of agricultural experts and the trade union system of Ilam province. A total of 110 people were selected as experts using purposive sampling method. The main tools of the study are interviews and semi-structured and structured questionnaires that were designed in three rounds. To analyze the Delphi stages, the statistical indices of mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation were used to determine the degree of consensus of the participants using SPSS software. The results showed that cases such as; creating markets for livestock and agricultural inputs, collecting and packaging livestock oil in the region, establishing a village store (direct supply of agricultural products in cooperation with rural cooperatives) and establishing a specialized store for agricultural tools and inputs are some of the opportunities are available in all counties.