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The purpose of the study was to identify and prioritize the educational needs and support needed by agricultural extension agents in Isfahan, Islamic Republic of Iran. The target population for the study consisted of S3 agricultural extension agents in Isfahan province. Census population were used therefore, sampling procedures were not utilized and genera I izability of the results was limited to study population. Results indicate the five most highly ranked items on educational needs of extension agents were: extension philosophy, instructional technology, innovation and adoption process, adult education, and extension methods. Respondents indicated that the major support needed were availability of subject matter specialists to help them with their technical and communication methods.

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The present study aimed to analyze affecting factors on agricultural experts moving toward becoming agricultural e-marketing users. During a correlation-descriptive research method, variables of the study were prioritized through Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and correlation between variables and adoption was computed and finally the most effective variables on adoption were determined using logistic regression. Results showed that behavioral belief (Attitude), normative belief (Subjective norm) and control belief (Perceived Behavioral Control) were affecting adoption. Among personal abilities and skills, engagement in agricultural jobs had the greatest effect on adoption which was related to control belief of the respondents. positive belief toward e-marketing and believing that had next great effect on decreasing traditional interferences respectively and variables related to behavioral belief had more important role in forming attitude of experts. Finally, agricultural companies were the most affecting variables on subjective norm of experts among other affecting components of agricultural market included in normative belief. Respondents selected network of agricultural advisory service companies which had an interference role between producers and customers as a proper option in e-marketing for local farmers. In this case, companies could merely deal with providing information of farmers’ products to suppliants through internet websites without playing direct role in buying and selling.     

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Pistachio is a major agricultural export commodity in Iran. Nowadays, it ranks first among Iran’s agricultural exports. This paper focuses on the comparative advantage in pistachio production and the export market in Iran. A policy analysis matrix (PAM) framework and revealed comparative advantage (RCA) index are applied to 2000-2004 data to study Iranian government policy regarding pistachio production and export. In addition, the producer protection indices in the framework of the aforementioned matrix was calculated in order to study input and output protection policy. Results showed that Iran has a comparative advantage both in the production and export of this commodity, but the comparative advantage in pistachio production is diminishing. The RCA index showed that the comparative advantage of pistachio exports from Iran has progressed. Indices showed a high net social profitability and government protection of pistachio pro-ducers in terms of input subsidies. Then, the effects of the changing world price, exchange rate, cost of domestic factors, and cost of tradable inputs on the comparative advantage and protection indices showed that, for retaining comparative advantage in pistachio production, productivity and production costs must be both increased and decreased, re-spectively. In order to increase the productivity of pistachio, farmers should use scientific on-farm management and should employ modern production methods, and the govern-ment should develop research and development institutes.

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Nowadays, more attention is being paid to customers’ satisfaction as funding decisions are made. Extension organization, which plays an important role in educating farmers, must know how far the learners are satisfied with its educational program. Accordingly, this study was conducted in Yazd Province (Iran) with the main objective of investigating the pomegranate growers’ satisfaction with their extension-education courses. A survey method was adopted for the study and 150 people were selected as sample out of 478 learners participating in the courses from 2003-2004 throughout the province. A ques-tionnaire was developed as the tool of study. The questionnaire was found to be valid and reliable (Cronbachs' alpha was 0.93). The results showed that the courses did not achieve many of their teaching objectives and were assessed as achieving their goals to a moderate extent. The contents of the courses were assessed as being comprehensive, applied, and new to a high, moderate, and low extent, respectively. The respondents are very satisfied with teachers’ characteristics and with the locality and facilities of courses, but were satis-fied with teaching methods to a low extent. They generally had a positive and favorable attitude towards the pomegranate extension-education courses. According to the study there were significant relationships between learners’ satisfaction with courses and their annual income, pomegranate yield, pomegranate production, times of participation in courses, and attitude toward the courses. Stepwise regression analysis indicated that three variables, attitude toward the courses, pomegranate yield and pomegranate production totally accounted for 77.8 percent of variations in learners’ satisfaction with the pome-granate extension-education courses.

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Delphi was the principle procedure used to conduct this study. In its most basic form, the Delphi consists of at least three different instruments which in the present study will be referred to as round one, round two and round three. Brooks (1972) stated that the number of rounds could either be predetermined by the researcher or continued until group consensus is reached. The primary purpose of this study was to identify strategies regarding commercialization of academicals research findings in dealing with agricultural food Industry. Seventy-Four faculty members of Agricultural Food Industry Departments employed at public universities were identified to serve as a panel of experts for this study.  However, 25 faculty members responded to our e-mailed questionnaires. From the review of literature, an open-ended questionnaire consisting of one question was developed for round one. This question was validated for content regarding its appropriateness to the objective of the study by a panel of faculty members in the Departments of Agricultural Extension and Education and Food Industry at Tarbiat Modares University. Seventeen strategies regarding commercialization of academic research findings in Agricultural Food Industry were collected from the panel of experts as the result of round one. Consensus was achieved for 15 of these statements in round three. The data in Table 3 shows the level of agreement of panel of experts in commercialization of academic research findings that more than (80%) of them reached consensus.  

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Due to increasing demand for the scarce available water throughout the world it is an extremely important matter, in water management, to make serious attempts in determining its true economic value. This paper discusses the optimal allocation of water to agriculture, the relatively true economic value of water as well as the cropping patterns for the Shirvan Barzo (SB) dam area in North Khorasan Province of Iran. The analysis is based on linear programming (LP) and on multi goal linear programming (MGLP) models for determining solutions that can maximize net return to farmers. In the study, the priority of goals is developmental, social, economical, and environmental respectively. The results indicated that optimizing the cropping patterns along with proper the allocation of irrigation water has yet substantial potential to increase the net return from agriculture. It has already decreased the applied water as much as 19 percent. The results show that the economic value of each unit of agricultural water is estimated to be between 107 to 1296 IRR×104 per cubic meter. This suggests managing the allocation of water based on optimal models and bring water prices close to its true economic value to motivate the farmers to economize in the applied water.

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The main purpose of this study was to identify training needs of agricultural and natural resources faculty members in the use of information technology (IT) for educational and research activities. This study used a descriptive and correlational survey method and the population of the study included all faculty members at the Tehran and Tarbiat Modares Universities, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (N=267). According to Krejcie and Morgan (1970), the sample size for a population of this size was 158. A systematic sampling technique was used to select faculty members in the study. The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the instrument was 0.82. Findings in respect to training needs of faculty members showed that “theories and models of online education” appeared at the top of the list of training needs and the lowest level of respondents` training need were in using Microsoft Word. The T-test result showed that there were significant differences (at the 0.01 level) in the training needs level of the faculty members who had received training during the last 5 years and those who had not . In the case of those who had access to computer and the Internet and those who did not have access, training needs differed at 0.05 level of significance. The results of Pearson's correlation coefficient showed that age had a significant and positive correlation with the faculty members` training needs level of IT use in educational and research activities. In contrast, Internet use per week and willingness for online education had a significantly negative correlation with the faculty members` IT training needs. No significant relationship was revealed between teaching experiences of the respondents and their training needs level in the use of information technologies.

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Nanotechnology has been shown to have promising roles in the development of various industries including the agricultural sector. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the researchers’ attitude and the obstacle hampering the development of nanotechnology in the agricultural sector of Iran. The population of this study consisted of researchers in national research centers/institutes (N= 187) during the biennium, 2009-2010. Proportional stratified random sampling was used for sample selection in the study (123). A questionnaire was developed and its validity was evaluated by a panel that consisted of the experts in the Nanotechnology Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, Iran, and the faculty members of Tarbiat Modares University. A pilot test was conducted to determine the reliability of the questionnaire and Cronbach Alpha coefficient was confirmed for the scales of the questionnaire (α= 0.92). The results of this study showed that the respondents’ attitude toward the significance of nanotechnology was in the range of adequate to excellent level (92%, accumulatively). On the other hand, among the 37 obstacle variables investigated, 5 factors were found to account for 69.89% of the variance of obstacle variables. These included budget hindrance, instructional difficulties, management problems, research problems, and relative-informative hardships.

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Transition control is of the great significance in laminar flows since determination of aerodynamics coefficients as well as heat transfer magnitude is strongly affected by accurate prediction and control of this phenomenon. Transition is severely dependent on space and time such that various microscopic and macroscopic scales can convert to each other rapidly. In one side, available uncertainties in RANS turbulence models can lead to inappropriate, or at least expensive, designs. In the other side, considering the growing rate of computational resources along with development of more efficient numerical methods in CFD applications, Direct Numerical Simulation, DNS, has found an applicable role even in industrial applications. In present study, a robust computational code is developed for Direct Numerical Simulation aimed at fundamental purposes. To this end, high-order compact finite-difference for spatial derivatives and high-order Runge-Kutta time integration are used in the present code as well as a low-pass filter to elucidate spurious oscillations. Also, non-reflecting boundary condition is employed to keep the domain size as small as possible and to improve the numerical accuracy at the boundaries. In present study, Direct Numerical Simulation investigates controlled transition scenarios for flow over a flat plate. Results are in a good agreement with those of previous researches both qualitatively and quantitatively which verify the various parts of the developed solver.

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As one of the most important products of Iran, pistachio has a significant share in non-oil revenues. Its annual foreign exchange earnings are over 800 million dollars. However, production of this nut in the country’s major production centers is faced with many problems regarding the efficiency and productivity of the inputs. This study was performed by using two-stage cluster sampling method. The results showed that with the increase in energy carriers’ prices, the farmers of the region would tend to use the optimal amounts of inputs in the long term, thus, reducing energy consumption from 46,016.72 to 31,092 MJ ha^-1. Also, the present values of energy productivity, its efficiency, and specific energy of, respectively, 0.03, 0.42, and 35.05 MJ kg^-1 would be optimized to 0.07, 1.10 and 13.47 MJ kg^-1. Besides, it was revealed that the net energy, which was negative under the existing condition (-26,532 MJ), would increase to 3,160 MJ following the increase in the price of energy carriers. Above all, the non-renewable energy consumption would be reduced from 39,743 to 26,457 MJ. Of course, to achieve the mentioned results, government support of farmers in the short term is necessary in order to facilitate and expedite the change in technology.

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The main purpose of this study was to investigate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of rural tourism in East Azarbaijan Province of Iran. To fulfill this objective, SWOT model analysis with Delphi technique was used as a method of refining group opinions and substituting computed consensus for an agreed-upon majority opinion. Findings indicated that favorable climate conditions, environmental potential, natural, historical and cultural tourism zones are the most important strengths, while lack of information and promotional activities to introduce rural tourism attractions and limited education and training of the villagers in how to deal with the tourists are the main weaknesses. Also, the most important opportunities include an increasing tendency to use nature for calmness and recreational activities, a growing attention by province management toward rural tourism, and investment in folklore such as music, local and traditional dress, Cultural Heritage, Handicraft, and Tourism Organization's efforts to rehabilitate and repair historic and cultural buildings, an increasing interest to visit the rural tourism areas, employment in tourism-related activities in rural areas, and appropriate legislation for the development of rural tourism. On the other hand, destruction and gradual extinction of plant and animal species caused by tourists' intervention, demolition of historic villages, lack of attention to rural tourism by extension and rural sector in the Ministry of Jihad-e-Agriculture, lack of or limited service providers or travel agents to visit rural areas, waste emissions and environmental damages are the main threats in this study.

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Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a new trend in educational sciences. This study investigates how knowledge sharing and transferring can be facilitated by using CSCL in a problem-solving setting. Intervention of research is education regarding Sustainable Water Resources Management (SWRM) by Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The purpose of this research was to determine whether change of knowledge was accomplished after utilization of CSCL in agricultural MSc. and PhD. students of Science and Research Branch University, Ahwaz, Iran. Education by CSCL was accomplished in a two-week period. As a part of the experimental design, 173 university students were randomly assigned and divided to four groups. The first group with 43 students was labeled pretest-posttest treatment group (E). The second group, with 44 students, labeled pretest-posttest control group (C₁), only received face to face education, which was known as the control group. Thus, we compared the effect of the treatment between the first and second group. The third group as the posttest-only treatment group (C₂) received the CSCL, with 44 students, and the fourth group as posttest-only control group (C₃) with 42 students did not receive the treatment. The results showed that there was significant difference between posttests knowledge score of C₂ and C₃, and E and C₁. Also, there was a significant difference between pretest and posttest in the experimental group. This result indicated the impact of treatment (CSCL) on the knowledge level of students. In addition, F-test analysis showed there were significant differences among posttests in all groups.

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One of the dangers that constantly threatens agricultural sector is soil erosion. The purpose of this study was to investigate and categorize farmers’ views on the factors inhibiting the implementation of soil conservation practices in Koohdasht Township, Iran. The study was fulfilled by using descriptive-correlation method. A stratified random sample of 377 farmers was drawn from a population of 19531 farmers in the township, based on Krejcie and Morgan Table for determining sample size from a finite population. The research questionnaire was validated by a panel of faculty members of agricultural extension and education at Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) and found to have sufficient content and face validity. Using a pilot study, internal consistency reliability was demonstrated with satisfactory alpha coefficient (0.73). Descriptive and inferential statistics, i.e., factor analysis, were used to analyze the data. Factor analysis produced four factors: “economic-extension”, “ecological-farming”, “social-structural”, and “organizational-management” which accounted for 49% of the total variance. The factors that emerged suggest the need for some executive measures to overcome the problems inhibiting the implementation of soil conservation practices in future programs.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate dairy processors market power in Iran. For this purpose, the dynamic imperfect competition model, in which processors are allowed to exert market power in both downstream (selling dairy products) and upstream (buying raw milk from dairy farmers) was applied. Market power parameters, dairy products demand, and raw milk supply elasticities were jointly estimated in a system of equations including market margin, dairy demand, and raw milk supply equations by none linear estimation technique. Data for the period 1992 to 2012 on the industry level were used for estimating an empirical version of the model. The result indicated that conjectural elasticities values were a departure from zero, which reflected non-competitive behavior in dairy market and in raw milk market specifically. Among three dairy products including pasteurized milk, yogurt, and cheese, the conjectural elasticity was the highest for the pasteurized market and the lowest for yogurt. The result suggests that dairy industries processors exercise marketing power in the downstream and upstream market in the dairy products supply chain. Therefore, policymakers must make appropriate policy for facilitating entrance conditions for new dairy processors and improve farmers’ marketing cooperative so as to have more competitive raw milk price.

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Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have affected all sectors including the agricultural sector. ICTs play an essential role in sharing knowledge and information and networking among different actors of the agricultural sector. Agricultural researchers, as the main actors of generating and developing knowledge and technology, need to use the unique capacities of ICTs. The current situation of access to ICTs and the extent and skill of agricultural researchers in using ICTs need to be evaluated to take advantage of this capacity. In this study, 141 researchers from six agricultural research institutes of Iran were selected by multi-stage random sampling method to survey their access, purpose, skill, and extent of using ICTs. The findings indicated that researchers had access to the main ICT tools such as computers and the Internet. Researchers mainly used ICTs for information acquisition, chatting and sending messages, and finding educational materials and resources. Most of the researchers use e-mails, search engines, and social networks every day. The primary skills of most researchers were good at working with computers. Job experience and skill in using ICTs explained 46.7% of the variance of using ICTs.
 

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Implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) project is a process of multi-participation that involves actors from agricultural researchers and scientists, extension agents, private consulting firms, pioneer farmers, rural cooperatives, family members, peer farmers, etc. The social interactions between farmers and actors drive the CA development. Therefore, this study analyzes the social network structures and characteristics of various actors by social network analysis in seven processes of applying CA in Iran. The research sample was composed of farmers who participated in the CA project in three provinces of Fars, Golestan, and Khuzestan (n= 133). The research instrument was a questionnaire that was designed as a matrix. The findings showed that pioneer farmers, CA farmers, and family members were the main actors in the farmers' social network. It can be concluded that these actors were the main social power in applying CA principles by farmers and they constituted the main centrality of the farmers' social network. It means that farmers are more likely to interact with local actors, and they interact less with the government and the actors outside the rural community. Therefore, it can be recommended that social power should be identified and project management should be organized through them in attempts to implement CA.
 

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The present study aimed to identify strategies for the application of pro-environmental technologies for greenhouse vegetable production in Tehran Province, Iran. It is an applied research type whose main instrument is a questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of 109 experts in Tehran Province, of which 86 experts were selected by stratified random sampling method (based on Krejcie and Morgan’s table). The questionnaire was revised with the help of the experts who had significant experience in crop protection to ensure the validity of the instrument. A pilot study was conducted on 22 experts in Alborz Province to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s Alpha scores were acceptable for different sections of the questionnaire (0.71-0.82), so, the instrument was reliable. The research methodology is descriptive, and the SWOT analysis was used. First, the internal environment was analyzed to prepare a list of strengths and weaknesses in applying pro-environmental technologies, and then, a list of opportunities and threats were identified by analyzing the external environment. Some derived strategies include the development of appropriate mechanisms to control the sale and use of pesticides by removing barriers to registration, mass production, storage, handling, transport and consumption of biological agents, and reinforcement of the knowledge of greenhouse owners regarding biological control.
 

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Human well-being is one of the main goals of sustainable rural development. Indeed, human well-being demonstrates rural societies’ quality of life. This concept consists of objective and subjective well-being dimensions. Although it is assumed that objective well-being is rationally related to subjective well-being, this relationship has not been fully confirmed in past studies. Three main reasons including the geographical level of assessment, the type of data used, and different epistemological perspectives have separated objective well-being assessment from the subjective one. We used the same geographical level, type of data used, as well as epistemological perspective in order to evaluate the relationship between objective well-being and subjective well-being among rice farmers. Using a questionnaire, a survey was carried out among 384 rice farmers (Response rate= 92.3%) in the main rice cultivation areas in Iran. The study sample was chosen by a two-stages cluster random sampling technique. Face to face personal interview was also used as the form of data collection. The results of structural equation modeling illustrated that farmers’ perception of economic, social, and environmental well-being as objective well-being domains significantly explained their subjective well-being constructs including happiness as well as life satisfaction. In fact, life satisfaction and happiness would be changed once farmers mentally perceive objective well-being domains. Therefore, objective well-being indicators can affect subjective well-being constructs, including life satisfaction and happiness, if they are assessed based on farmers’ self-evaluation.

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The lack of accountability of government organizations to address the needs of stakeholders and the private sector and the provision of low-quality services to clients has increased dissatisfaction with government services. Therefore, providing quality services is essential to increase satisfaction with government organizations. Extension services are one of the main components of sustainable agriculture development in Iran and are provided to farmers through the Agricultural Research, Education, and Extension Organization (AREEO). Considering the low level of farmers' satisfaction with extension services, development of a system for assessing farmers' satisfaction as a strategic project has been emphasized. This study was conducted to develop the components of farmers' satisfaction with extension services and determine the factors affecting their satisfaction, in 2019. In this study, the classic Delphi method was used during three rounds. The expert panel consisted of nine university faculty members, 14 faculty members of AREEO, and 19 headquarters extension experts (n= 42). Delphi results led to the selection of 37 components to assess the satisfaction of farmers with the extension services. These components were classified using the constant comparative method in four main factors. These factors include technical and professional features of the extension experts, service quality, perceived effectiveness, and policy, management, and planning.

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Pistachios play a vital role in Iran’s agricultural export. Recently, however, Iran has lost considerable amount of its market share in international trade. This study aimed to address the price and non-price factors affecting the pistachio markets of Iran by estimating a structural system of equations. The domestic supply and demand for pistachios in Iran along with its export demand and supply to European Union, East Asia, and West Asia markets were estimated simultaneously, during 1988 to 2015. The results indicate that Research and Development (R&D) has had a positive effect on the pistachio supply and exports. Hence, it is proposed that the allocation of R&D funding in Iran be reconsidered. However, advertising has an insignificant effect on the Iranian’s export supply in international market. Hence, reviewing the type of advertisement is a vital issue for future research. European countries are less sensitive to the Iranian’s export price of pistachios, while they pay more attention to the quality and taste of the Iranian’s pistachio.