Although living in a village might be very pleasant and dreamy at first glance, it is hard and harsh because of many factors such as poverty, unemployment, drought, global warming, and low water and agricultural productivity. Despite such difficult conditions and low quality of rural life, a significant number of people remain in villages and do not migrate. This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting survival, sustainability and staying of people in the villages to answer this question: Why do the rural people still remain in their villages? The statistical population included the rural households living in Bayg subdistrict of Torbat Heydariyeh County, Razavi Khorasan province of Iran. Using Cochran s formula, 188 households were systematically randomly selected and surveyed via stratified sampling method by a questionnaire. The studied variables included social cohesion, social trust, social participation, and natural, cultural, welfare and economic attractions as well as individual characteristics. The study results showed that a combination of four economic, cultural, natural and individual factors affected sustainable rurality, respectively, and among these factors, lack of economic strength had the greatest impact on the persistence and non-migration of the rural people. However, the fragile social environmental conditions could change the rural people s decisions if we failed to engage in capacity building and social empowerment and facilitation by participation of the rural people themselves.

This descriptive survey study aimed at a strategic analysis of rural tourism development in Sarbaz County, Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran. The statistical population consisted of experts and activists of tourism related departments of the county including 200 experts (from District Office,, Governor’s Office, Relief Committee, Cultural Heritage Organization, Labor Department and Municipality); among them, 130 people were selected as sample size using Morgan table and stratified random sampling method. The required data were collected through documentary and library surveys as well as field studies and analyzed by SWOT technique using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of tourism and possible strategies for tourism development in the region. According to the results, the natural attractions with a relative weight of 0.248 among the strengths and the authorities’ belief in employment generation through the tourism development with a relative weight of 0.238 among the opportunities were found to be the highest priorities; also, SO strategy with a relative weight of 0.332 was considered as the most important practical strategy for the rural tourism development in Sarbaz County. Therefore, taking advantage of the development of seasonal markets and exhibitions in the surrounding villages and towns and the supply of tropical products, the establishment of tropical fruit parks, the establishment of eco-tourism resorts along the Sarbaz River, and the emphasis on government support for employment in the most tourist-friendly villages were recommended within the SO strategies.

This study aimed generally at investigating and analyzing the consumption basket of rural households in different income deciles to achieve food security. For this purpose, the income deciles were initially divided into three general groups including the average of the first to third deciles as the first group, of the fourth to seventh deciles as the second group, and of the eighth to tenth deciles as the third group. Then, the Generalized Ordinary Differential Demand System (GODDS) was estimated using the integrated data of 2006-2017 in Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations (SURE) method; and using Wald test, Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) function was selected as the appropriate functional form. The results of the price elasticity calculation showed that the price elasticity of food demand in rural areas was negative. It was also found that cereals and livestock meat as well as livestock and dairy products and sugar were complementary goods; cereals were known as the complementary goods for livestock, dairy products, and sugar; in addition, vegetables and pulses could be considered as substitutes for cereals in the rural areas. The calculation of income elasticity showed the positive values for food groups in the rural areas, indicating the normality of commodity groups. According to the results, the income elasticity of cereals, livestock, fish meat, shrimp and its products, dairy products, pulses and sugar was obtained a figure more than one, indicating that these foods were considered as the luxury goods.

Undoubtedly, land reform is among the significant events of Iran s contemporary history. The importance of this issue has made the experts in different fields examine and analyze the subject from different aspects. This descriptive-analytical aimed at comparing the act of land reform adopted by the National Assembly and Senate in 1959 and 1960 with its amendment bill adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers in 1961 to find out the most important aspects of their differentiating and sharing features. The results indicated that the preparation and drafting of the bill had been carefully reviewed by the producers so that as far as possible, it could be implemented in line with the conditions and rules governing the villages of Iran; moreover, compared to the act, the bill entailed more benefits for the farmers, rather than the land owners while the act entailed more benefits for the land owners, rather than the farmers. As shown, granting more authority to the ministry of agriculture in the bill compared to the act was one of the other differences between them. Accordingly, the mentioned items could be considered as the advantages of the bill compared to the act while the exclusion of endowed lands might be one of the advantages of the act.

Recent droughts in Iran have affected the agricultural and rural sector, followed by different response among rural people of the country. Increasing the likelihood of rural youth migration to cities is one of their reactions in this regard. Measuring the impact of drought on the rural youth migration intentions can provide better insights for rural and agricultural policymakers and planners. The statistical population of this descriptive correlational study included all the rural youth aged 15 to 29 in Hamadan County of Iran. Using Cochran sampling formula, 237 young people were detemined as the sample size and selected in a multistage randomized sampling method. The research instrument was a questionnare with several sections, the validity and reliability of which were respectively confirmed by expert opinions and a pilot study with Cronbach s alpha calculation (0.85) for the composite index. The results showed that 53.2 percent of the rural youth intended to migrate within the next one or two year, also, the migration intention of 63.8 percent of them in next few years was at a moderate to high level, the sane extent stated by ninety percent of the rural youth as the implications of drought for their livelihoods. Correlation analysis indicated the rural youth migration intention s significantly positive relations with the variables of drought implications, land ownership, number of household nenbers and their education as well as its significantly negative relations with the variables of the rural youth s behavioural control, attitude toward agriculture and age. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis also showed that the five variables including attitude toward agriculture, educational level, behavioral control, drought implications and age explained 27.7 percent of variance of the rural youth migration intention.

Lack of access to adequate energy and the prevalence of undernourishment are of the most important issues in the developing world due to their impacts on public health and individual’s physical and mental abilities in society. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the impacts of drought, food production diversity and different household characteristics on the prevalence of undernourishment in rural areas of Iran. For this purpose, panel quantile regression was considered as the best technique to estimate the impacts of social and economic indicators on the prevalence of undernourishment during the period of 2012-2016. The main results indicated that among the household characteristics, increase in household income, share of food in household expenditure and age of household head and among the environmental indicators, increase in food production diversity would prevent the prevalence of undernourishment in studied rural households; on the other hand, increase in household size, education expenditure, drought severity, and food price indexes would increase the prevalence of undernourishment. Based on these results, non-agricultural income tax exemptions in the rural areas and redistribution of current subsidies by focusing on highly malnourished areas as well as focusing on large rural households, providing policies that reduce the impacts of drought on food production and ultimately, promoting the strategies that allow for increased diversification of food production at the household level could be suggested to prevent further malnutrition in the rural areas.

Creating employment and improving entrepreneurial space processes in rural areas are one of the essentials of rural development program. This study aimed at providing a model for improving rural entrepreneurship development in Shazand County of Markazi province of Iran. The statistical population of the study included 900 rural entrepreneurs in the county. Random sampling method was used to select subjects for the study. According to the Krejcie Morgan table, a sample of 265 rural entrepreneurs was selected for the survey. The required data were collected through a structured questionnaire, the validity of which was confirmed by university professors and entrepreneurship experts and its reliability was performed by pre-test. Cronbach s alpha coefficient for the variables and research structures ranged from 0.71 to 0.918. The relationships between the items and structures were analyzed using SPSS22 and Smart PLS3 statistical software. Then, the relations between educational, economic and institutional factors and the rural entrepreneurship development were investigated in a structural equation method. The results showed that the GOF criterion was 0.389, indicating that the model for improvement of rural entrepreneurship development was suitable. According to the model, respectively, the institutional factor over the economic factor and the educational factor over the institutional factor had the highest factor loadings, in other words, for the development of rural entrepreneurship, the paths indirectly affecting the entrepreneurship development should be considered. The results also showed that all three educational, economic and institutional factors affected the entrepreneurship development, but the economic factor could be considered as one with the most direct impact on the rural entrepreneurship development.