Future Studies of Rural-Urban Linkage Benefits for Sustainable Food Security (Case Study: Rural Settlements in Southeast of Tehran Province)

This study aims to analyze the future status of rural-urban linkage benefits for sustainable food security in rural settlements in the study area. In this applied and descriptive-analytical research, the necessary information was collected in two ways: library and questionnaire. Micmac software and scenario wizard were used to analyze the data. Findings indicate that 52 factors were identified as essential benefits affecting the sustainable food security status of the study area. The status of dispersion of rural-urban linkage variables in the sustainable food security of the studied villages indicates their unsustainable status. Final scores were obtained and ranking of key factors was performed. The crucial final factors are urban and rural specialist workforce, agricultural services and production support, formal and informal urban institutions interacting with rural institutions, and the agricultural sector targeted institutionalism. Also, the formation and expansion of conversion and complementary industries, social networks for product offering and information exchange, businesses, microcredit, branding, and marketing became apparent. Based on these factors, four scenarios for the future status of rural-urban linkage benefits in food security of the study area were presented.