Economy

Khorasan Razavi Province is among provinces that has established several rural production corporations in recent decades. One of their main tasks of these corporations is to eliminate traditional filed structures and solving problems using new and modern agricultural tools. This paper studies the activities of RPC in Khorasan Razavi Province to achieve this goal. In this regard, performance of RPC in the covered villages of 24 counties has been studied based on 11 of infrastructural services and using variables TOPSIS technique and variable have been compared and ranked. Studies on RPC in Khorasan Razavi Province shows performance level of corporations in giving services to their members is not suitable. Among different counties, Nayshaboor, Torbat-Heydariyeh and Torbat-Jam counties have best performances and Kashmar, Kalat and Zaveh counties have worst performances in giving service to coverall villages. In addition, in this research effective factors on improvement of corporation performances(based on views of experts and corporation managers) in the form of 7 indexes’, have been studied using anthropic method. Based on expert views, state financed supports are the most important functions in exacting infrastructural activities. After that, management aspects, motivation and cooperation of members are effectives.

The achievement of technical improvement during last three decades is being considered as major reason regarding growth and development in developed countries. Practically, with respect to advanced countries, more emphasis is devoted to diversification of rural economy as far as sustainability issue is concerned. According to major researches, rural regions could not achieve sustainability by just relying on one type of livelihood especially regarding to arid areas. The impact of industries upon rural regions is associated with multiplier affects. It is argued that any structural change through industrialization not only enhance rural economy, but also could lead to wide and broad transformations in all other aspects as well. It is associated with positive impacts including changes in culture, and social structure of the traditional villages. In general, that part of agricultural sector which possess great harmony with rural population, would be prime activity as opposed to service and industrial sectors. The share of agricultural sector regarding gross domestic product has been continuously plummeted. It has been 5.18 in 2006. Word wide agricultural products are not just being considered as rural products. That is rural economy is being diversified. Industry more specifically processing and handicrafts are among major sector of rural economy. An introduction of industries into rural areas not only influence the village from economic standpoint, but also is bears its impact upon other sectors of the rural areas as well The most important impact deals with social systems and its resultant complications. These impacts over individual and personal culture are more pronounced. This in turn, is influenced by other factors as well. Of course one who works in the computer company with peasants, working in rice paddies in Thailand behave differently. According to past study, could be viewed by two approaches; is rural industrialization one approach is based on Carl Marx idem logy how believed in the impact of industrialization upon society. However, the opponent of this group criticize the negative role of industrialization through prevalence of believe that society through development of alienation. They industry and technology lose its spirit. On the other hand some school of thought appreciates the industries as welcome phenomena and believes in its positive consequences. They further argue that in the case of proper industrialization in a society, the culture, and social structure of a society would modernized. The key person pertaining to this school of thought is blowers. He believed that the growth of industrialization would enhance the demand for other relevant services. Through industrial growth and its, synergistic consequence, a government would be able to tax people more and as a result, medical care education, and provision of security as well as other services would relative be guaranteed.

Taking to account the mature as well as the objective of this study, descriptiveanalytical and comparative research method was applied. The statistical society composes P rural workers in Khayam industrial town in 66 villages as target group located in proximity of this town the head of households as well as. Of other rural households who engaged in activities other than Khayam industrial town as an evidence group. The sample size turned out to be 388 households through application of Cochran formula and random sampling technique.

This study suggests that Khayam Industrial town regarding three indicators, enhancement of job skills, getting advance of insurance services and accessing to mass media show positive impacts. On the other hand, the enhancement of community participation. Strengthening mutual self-confidence, providing motivation for staying in rural communities, is not associated with positive impacts. Moreover, 80% of Khayam Industrial town workers enjoy high level of job satisfaction. It is further argued that regarding three cultural indices including feeling of prosperity, feeling of alienation and value systems impose great positive impacts and led to drastic, positive cultural changes. Some may argue that even though construction of Industrial reigns and towns from one hand provide job opportunities and increase the income level, but it does not necessary means keeping the population in rural areas and prevent migration .this study confirm this as well. This in turn more attention regarding increasing the participationlevel.

Lack of variations existed in economic settings and a job opportunity is being considered as the most significant characteristics of the rural country’s economic structures. It is argued that occurrence of variations in rural economic activities as an approach, could be considered as an appropriate measure in which most of the development theoricians believe in regarding the mitigation of the negative impacts associated with this mal structure as well as the achievement of sustainable rural development. The major objective of this study deals with identification of main barriers regarding the occurrence of variations in rural economic activities of the bordering villages located in Marivan.

The research method based on the objectives of the study has applied nature. It has descriptive and analytical essence. The statistical society is associated with Marivan which is located in 10 km of Iraq international border. 18 villages were selected as a sample. The sample size based on application of Cochran formula amounted to be 334 households. This study further supports the application of SPSS software for analysis purposes.

This study suggests that barriers toward regional variations could be classified into social, physical, and managerial – institutional ones. However, there is not a drastic difference between all the selected villages from barriers stand points. Generally speaking the barriers are numerous. Based on step wise regression method, managerial institutional, physical, economic and social variables are capable of explaining 88% of the variation. It further suggests that the managerial- institutional structures compare with others are more responsible for lack of variations in rural economic activities.

Rural areas face various challenges in Iran; one of the most important challenges isb economic weakness. Since entrepreneurship can remove many major challenges (such as unemployment, low level of income, lack of economic diversification) in rural areas and it can affect other aspects of rural life positively, entrepreneurship and job creation are the most important plans and strategies for rural improvement to resolve economic challenges. Entrepreneurship in village leads to job creation, increase in income, wealth creation, improvement of quality of life and it is also helpful for local people participating in economic activities. The agriculture section in most third world countries cannot provide enough job opportunities and income to meet the needs of rural areas with high population density as a result of low level of productivity of land and labor, so non-farm entrepreneurship is considered as the suitable strategy to improve job creation and increase rural income. Promoting diversification of economic activities in rural areas especially in non-farm section leads to a profound impact on the creation of entrepreneurial thinking in rural areas; Since for landless people or those who own a small size of land, earning farming income and this amount of income does not meet their needs, non-farm entrepreneurship and as a result diversification of non-farm economy (or related to farm economy) can create job and income for them. Undoubtedly, job creation in non-farm section prevents labor force as the major economic capital from exiting the villages which is the main reason of rural-to-urban migration growth and many socio-economic problems. Based on this fact, this study aims to analyze the importance of non-farm entrepreneurshipb in improving the quality of life in villages of Shandiz area and also to determine that in which dimensions and aspects of rural life considered by entrepreneurs in their plans, the farm based entrepreneurship activities have the most impacts. The research questions include "how much farm based entrepreneurship activities could improve the quality of life in the villages in economic, social and environmental dimensions?" and "in which dimensions do entrepreneurship activities have the most impacts?"

According to its aim, this is a practical and developmental study and regarding its methodology it is descriptive-analytic one. For theoretical modeling, descriptive and documentary methods have been used by reviewing theoretical literature related to rural development, quality of life, entrepreneurship and non-farm entrepreneurship studies. So, the criteria and indicators have been chosen according to theoretical frameworks and works done by other researches and also on the basis of its aim. The analytic unit in this study is the non-farmer householder who participates in creative non-farming activities in studied villages. Residents of villages in Shandiz area, Binaloud County, including Shandiz and Abardeh villages with population of 19667 in 1390 are the study population. According to the conducted field study, among 18 villages which their populations are more than 20 households, 6 villages with the population of 13217 are considered as study samples and in these villages non-farm entrepreneurship activities have been done more than other villages. To study the impacts of non-farm entrepreneurship activities in the studied area, samples should be chosen according to the number of households in the region; regarding the total number of households, sample households in the sample villages are 3776 households and as a result, according to Cochran Formula (using 0.06 margin of error) 249 households have been chosen to complete the questionnaires regarding the householder's point of view. The first level of sample selection among householders in the studied area is according to an analogy between villages and the second level is random selection. Eventually, information extracted from the questionnaires has been analyzed using statistical methods (Pearson, Spearman and Chi-square correlation tests to the case with independent group and step by step regression analysis) performed in SPSS.

It was found that, non-farm activities have various impacts on economic, social and environmental dimensions. Chi-square test to the case with independent group was performed to analyze villager's point of view regarding non-farm entrepreneurship activities; for most indicators, a meaningful level of significance less than 0.05 and the relationship has been proven. For assessment of economic impacts of entrepreneurship on quality of life, indicators such as income, employment status and economic justice have been used. The relative distribution for answering question suggests that the average value of economic changes is 3.46. This average is defined in the range from 1 to 5 and it shows that the economic status is higher than the average level. For assessment of social impacts, indicators such as social capital, social participation, population stability, satisfaction of access and personal welfare have been used. The average of social changes is 3.06 and it shows that social status is higher than the average level. The average value of environmental changes is 3.38 and it shows that the environmental status is higher than the average level. It has to be mentioned that for assessment of non-farm entrepreneurship activities, some indicators have been used including good job opportunities, government investment, product quality, education, availability and changeability of land use. The average value of non-farm entrepreneurship activities is 3.41 which show this status is higher than the average. In conclusion, it can be said that non-farm entrepreneurship activities improve the quality of life in economic, social and environmental dimensions.