In this article, a sustainable network of distribution of agricultural items with suppliers, distribution centers, and retailers is considered. The main purpose of presenting the mathematical model in this article is to determine the optimal number and location of suppliers, assigning suppliers to distribution centers and optimal routing for the distribution of agricultural items to retailers in a predefined time window. Also, determining the optimal amount of inventory and the reorder point in retailers and distribution centers is another problem decision. To model the problem, some parameters of the model were considered non-deterministic and were controlled by the probabilistic fuzzy method. The results of solving numerical examples in different sizes showed that with the increase of the total costs of the distribution network of agricultural items, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions decreases, and the employment rate increases. Also, with the increase of the uncertainty rate, due to the increase of the real demand and the change in the optimal amount of production, distribution, storage and reorder point, the values of all the objective functions also increase. It was also observed by solving different numerical examples with NSGA II and MOGWO algorithms, these algorithms have been able to solve the problem in a much shorter period than the epsilon constraint method, and comparison indicators such as NPF, MSI, SM, and computing time show These algorithms have a high efficiency in solving numerical examples of the problem of the distribution network of agricultural items.

The limitations regarding production factors as well as the increasing global markets requirements have increased the importance of products competitiveness. Despite its potentials for export including easy access to Iraq's market as well the availability of important resources of agricultural products, Kurdistan province in Iran has failed to make progress in terms of production and exporting agricultural products. Iran's Kurdistan Province has the important water and labor sources of Agricultural products. Kurdistan share of Iran's Agricultural products export is nearly 1.5 percent. Kurdistan province must recognize its comparative and competitive advantage to increase its competitiveness in international market. Comparative and competitive advantage are used to explain the tendency of countries to export or import commodities. We have used a combination of different indicators to explain the competitiveness of agricultural products in Kurdistan province.

The international competitiveness is a challenging phenomenon that has become increasingly important in today's world. Some economic theory emphasizes that change in comparative advantage should be a reflection of changes in the endowment and factors of products. Others attribute the major cause of world trade fluctuations to the technology gap, production factor and domestic costs. Institutional quality and human capital are the factors affecting world trade. Evidences that production and exports become more diversified-not more specialized- as per capita income rises has been interpreted to suggest that comparative advantage does not evolve as theory predicts and has been taken as a basis for a revival of industrial policy in developing countries.This paper uses the Normalized Revealed Comparative Advantage (NRCA) and Constant Market Shares (CMS) indices to analyze the competitiveness of agricultural products of Kurdistan province for the years 2010-2016. CMS index is combination of three indictors: goods effects, market effects and competitiveness effects. These indexes are calculated for 32 agricultural items with relevance to the agricultural sector. The relevance basis for the classification of 32 agricultural items is the Harmonized Coding and classification system (HS).

The results show that Kurdistan province has the comparative advantage between 16 agricultural items comparing to other Iran' provinces. Among those 16 agricultural items, apple, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, other vegetables, pepper, potato, watermelon and eggplant have a high comparative advantage with the NRCA index by more than 0.0005. In the other words, the CMS index indicates the revealed competitive advantage of Kurdistan province in 8 agricultural items. These consist of eggplant, strawberry, animals-meat, garlic, carrot, onion, lettuce and oil and fruit seeds. Kurdistan province cannot convert comparative advantage of important products to competitive advantage. These important products are apple, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, potato and watermelon.Results of market effect index emphasized that the Iraq market is appropriate for exporting products such as fresh animals, milk and dairy products, potato, piles and shallots, lettuce, carrots and turnips, cucumber, eggplant, currant, watermelon, dried fruits and grains. But Kurdistan province has not export advantage in all products. The results of this study suggested that it is beneficial for the framers in Kurdistan province to produce the products which have relative and comparative advantage and also try to move from comparative to competitive advantage.

This paper offers empirical consistency among five indices of competitiveness advantage to examine Kurdistan province' international advantage in agricultural items in the previous seven years. The results show that Kurdistan province has comparative advantage in many of agricultural products, but it is not successful in creating competitive advantage in target market. Kurdistan province must try to convert its comparative advantage of products to competitive advantage to develop its share of target markets.

Increasing inequality and concentration of incomes in the upper-income classes is the main reason for the decline in living standards of people in the lower-income classes. Therefore, adopting policies to combat rising inequality in income distribution will be directly related to reducing the spread of poverty in poorer communities and low-income groups. In this study, the effect of credit policy on income inequality in rural areas of Iran was evaluated using the approach of the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and time series data from 1986-2018. The results showed that the implementation of credit policy has had a significant effect on reducing income inequalities in rural areas in the short and long run. Also, the results showed that increasing the real capital stock of the agricultural sector and increasing the share of income from rural living costs reduces income inequalities in rural areas in Iran. However, the real growth of the agricultural sector and subsidies for agricultural items were recognized as factors in increasing income inequality in rural areas of Iran. Finally, in order to reduce income inequality in rural areas of the country, pursuing and continuing the implementation of credit policy due to its sustainable and long-run effects on reducing inequality in rural income distribution in the country is the first policy recommendation in this study. In addition, facilitating capital increase processes in the agricultural sector with a focus on micro-beneficiaries is another policy recommendation in this study that can facilitate the implementation of credit policy by supporting the receipt of credit for micro-owners.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the validity and reliability of thinking style scale amongst agricultural students. A sample of 247 students from Agricultural Colleges of Universities of Tehran, Yasoohj, Ilam, Shahid Bahonar Kerman, and Razi Kermanshah was randomly selected and answered to the scale items. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) and AMOS Graphic software were used to analyze the data. Test-retest reliability and internal consistency showed appropriate reliability of thinking style subscales. Since the reliability of Anarchic style was issuable, with omitting one item the reliability reached .74 and acceptable level. Validity of scale confirmed with face and content validity and construct validity confirmed by Confirmatory factor analysis. About the "Form" dimension, the model assessed twice, with 4 items for Anarchic and 5 items for the same style. The results showed satisfactory fit of the model. According to the findings, thinking style scale is valid and reliable for assessing thinking styles of agricultural students.

Standard is a collection of recipes, guidelines or recommendations which use in production, creating or making of goods, products, documents or special resources. Extent of adaptation of Persian Agricultural scientific journals which are publishing in Iran with ISO publishing standards was evaluated in this research. The information items which were necessary to be presented in different sections of Agricultural scientific journals were examined. Items which were needed to be present in cover page, content, title page, running title, and endnote, abstract, first page of an article, references and its structure were among the information items. 47 Agricultural scientific journals were publishing until February 2009 consisted of the research population. Descriptive survey method is used. Results showed the adaption rate with ISO standards in research population was 53.47 percent. There was no private publisher which publishes agricultural scientific journals. The extent of adaptation with ISO standards was high in journal sections such as abstracts and keywords.

Entrepreneurship seem as the main force to enhance socio-economic and cultural development. Higher education system can contribute to entrepreneurship and enterprise development in agriculture sector both indirectly، through entrepreneurial education of agricultural students (teaching entrepreneurship to students)، and directly، by academic entrepreneurship and commercialization of university agricultural research (commercial utilization of university knowledge and technology and mobilizing university resources to enterprise development). This research aimed to identify and prioritize components and related indicators of entrepreneurship education in higher agricultural education system. In the first phase، a combination of systematic review and Delphi technique was conducted to extract and categorize indicators of entrepreneurial higher agricultural education. Using purposive sampling technique and regarding the research purpose، criteria for selection of participants as key experts were identified، as professional expert، lecturer or researcher in entrepreneurship. A total of 21 experts participated in the research. In the second phase، using AHP and TOPSIS، five categories of indicators of academic entrepreneurship were ranked، including: entrepreneurship education methods (20 items)، curriculum development for entrepreneurship education (15 items)، capacity-based content of entrepreneurship education (20 items)، research in entrepreneurship education (20 items)، professional development for entrepreneurship education (12 items)، stakeholders and target groups of entrepreneurship education (9 items)، promotion of entrepreneurial culture (in-formal entrepreneurship education) (23 items) and capacity and institutional development for entrepreneurship education (40 items).

The purpose of this study is to evaluate experts’ sustainable agricultural literacy (knowledge, attitude, sensitivity and concern) level and to assess effects of socio-economic variables (gender, educational level, experience and information source on their sustainable agricultural literacy level. A total of 180 agricultural experts in Tehran and Alborz provinces are questioned by using of a questionnaire which includes four parts; knowledge (17 items), attitude (10 items), sensitivity (18 items), concern (19 items). Experts had participated in courses of sustainable agriculture. Data analysis showed that experts had positive attitude and high degrees of concern and sensitivity toward sustainability of agriculture; however they had low to moderate levels of sustainable agricultural knowledge. In order to evaluate the role of socio-economic variables on experts’ sustainable agricultural level, six separate one-way MANOVAs were conducted. The results revealed that; a) there is significant effect of gender on experts’ sustainable agricultural literacy regarding to concern, b) there is a significant effect of educational level and work experience on experts’ sustainable agricultural literacy regarding to knowledge and concern; and c) there is a significant effect of information sources e.g. workshops and media about sustainability of agriculture on experts’ sustainable agricultural literacy. Finally, based on these results, planning aiming to promote the literacy of sustainable agriculture was proposed.

This study were examined relationship between bank credits and investment growth of agricultural sector in Iran during the period of 1982-2011 by auto regressive distribution lag bounds test approach. Basically, the growth investing of the agricultural sector in Iran is related to oil revenues, bank credits, value added of agriculture sector and capital stock. The results confirm the existence of a long-run relationship between variables in model. In addition, according to the results, bank credit is the most significant variable in explaining the growth investing, so that increases access to it will encourage growth investment of the agricultural sector in Iran. The estimations show that elasticity of bank credits, oil revenues, stock investment and value added are 0.103, 0.015, 0.049 and -0.058 in the agricultural sector respectively.

In Egypt, pamphlets are often used to disseminate agricultural information to farmers. The aim of this study was to construct and develop a scale of quality standards for agricultural extension pamphlets. The process to construct the scale involved the following steps: (1) The articulation of the construct; (2) Selection of response format; (3) Data collection; and (4) Psychometric analysis. The scale consists of 33 items measuring five domains: content; processing the information; the appearance of text; illustrations; and designing and formatting. Items analysis, reliability, and validity estimates were obtained by a group of experts (N= 78). The reliability of the domains was strong and ranged from (α= 0.81 to α= 0.91). The authors tested validation process by evidence of content validity, criterion-related validity, construct validity, and discriminant validity. Depending on the reliability and validity results, the scale was suggested as a reliable tool for assessing the quality of agricultural extension pamphlets. Implications for practice in planning and evaluation of printed materials for agricultural extension work are discussed.

Improper handling of agricultural residues can lead to irreversible environmental damage. This study investigates the impact of two training methods, in-person and remote, on the management of agricultural residues among wheat farmers in Ravansar County during the 2022-2023 agricultural years. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) was used as a comprehensive framework to assess farmers' decisions and behaviors throughout the training process.This research employed a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design with a control group. The study population comprised 400 wheat farmers from Ravansar County. According to Krejcie and Morgan's table, 180 participants were randomly selected and divided into three groups of 60 (two experimental groups: in-person and remote, and one control group). Data were collected using a researcher-developed questionnaire, measuring constructs such as self-efficacy (16 items), stages of change (18 items), decision-making balance (22 items), and behavior (6 items). The data were analyzed using SPSS18 software and statistical tests, including paired and independent t-tests, ANOVA, HSD test, and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.The results indicated that remote training based on the Transtheoretical Model was more effective in improving self-efficacy and stages of change, while in-person training yielded better results in decision-making balance. However, both groups showed similar outcomes in the behavior construct. These findings suggest that remote training in agricultural residue management during pandemics can be an effective approach to reducing the practice of burning agricultural residues among farmers by enhancing self-efficacy and translating theoretical knowledge into practical behaviors.