Developing a Model for Participation of Public, Private, Beneficiaries, and Associations towards a Sustainable Agricultural Development (Case Study: Central District of Boyer-Ahmad County)

Document Type : علمی

Authors

• Majid Khezri ¹
• Mehdi Nooripoor ¹
• Payman Falsafi ²

¹ Yasouj University

² Institute of Technical & Vocational Higher Education of Jihad-e- Keshavarzi

10.22067/jrrp.v4i4.44147

Abstract

1- INTRODUCTION
Participatory development (PD) seeks to engage local populations in development projects. It has taken a variety of forms since it emerged in the 1970s. Local ‘ownership’ is essential to sustain capacity but depends on wide-spread participation. A lot of studies related to participation topics have been conducted recently. But a few of them consider participation between all of stakeholders or beneficiaries of development. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a participatory model for public, private, beneficiary, and association sectors for achieving a sustainable agricultural development in the Central District of Boyer-Ahmad County.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Most of the literature about PD emphasis giving the poor a chance to contribute activities related to their benefits. hoping that development projects will be more sustainable and successful by engaging local population in the development process. PD has become an increasingly accepted method of development practice and is employed by a variety of organizations. It is often presented as an alternative to top-down development approach. There are some questions about the proper definition of PD as it varies depending on the perspective applied. The "Social Movement Perspective" defines participation as the mobilization of people to eliminate unjust hierarchies of knowledge, power, and economic distribution. The "Institutional Perspective" defines participation as the reach and inclusion of inputs by relevant groups in the design and implementation of a development project. Based on this approach, a lot of stakeholders play their own role in the process of rural development. No doubt, to achieve real rural development, it is necessary to seek some guidelines for the cooperation of all stakeholders.
3- METHODOLOGY
The Grounded Theory as a qualitative research method was used in this study. Based on the data collected from about 92 hours semi-structured interviews with 51 agricultural key informants who were purposefully selected from the study region, the text of the interviews was transcribed and coded using open coding in the 183 primary classes (themes). Then, these themes were categorized into 54 groups and consequently, these groups were also categorized into 21 central categories using theoretical coding. Finally, a model was designed for participation of the supposed stakeholders/ beneficiaries towards a sustainable agricultural development.
4- CONCLUSION
As it was mentioned, this study sought to develop a model for collaboration and participation of sectors active in the field of agricultural development including public, private, beneficiaries, and associations towards a sustainable agricultural development.
This model contains determinant components (such as participation-orientated strategy of sustainable development of agriculture, private sector quality services, the participation orientation of the land users, systematic leadership of associations, decentralization, and employing local authorities), and constraints (including decentralization and governance of the relations in the public sector, executive and private sector investment restrictions, the economic and cultural poverty of farmers, and institutional and legal challenges existent in the supposed organizations). The contribution and stance of public and private sectors and beneficiaries and associations were coordinated in establishing a balanced participation. This model also makes allowance for monitoring participation orientated network and agricultural database.

Keywords

• Sustainable agricultural development
• Participation
• Grounded theory
• Boyer-Ahmad County

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