Local food entrepreneurship plays a vital role in promoting and distributing regional foods. To link local food with the market, there is a need to develop local food systems that promote and support ...local food, its distribution and consumption. Local food entrepreneurs are constrained due to various factors prevailing in the entire rural ecosystem, which hinders their prospects of business expansion. This study focussed on identifying the commercially feasible local food products that can be produced and marketed by local entrepreneurs. Also, this study is an effort towards identifying and analysing the challenges perceived by local food entrepreneurs in rural India. The challenges were identified through a literature review and the personal interviews of the rural entrepreneurs and were then modelled through the DEMATEL (decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory) approach. The modelling of challenges helped in identifying the priority areas, based on which focused strategies were suggested for the promotion of local food entrepreneurs. From this study, it emerged that product quality issues, lack of buyers and inconsistent government policies are the most significant challenges perceived by entrepreneurs. This study also includes resource mapping for the local entrepreneurs to present a comprehensive scenario of the prevailing ecosystem.
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The establishment of protected areas as a strategy for biodiversity conservation implies the need for sustainable alternative livelihoods of rural, forest-dependent communities. This article ...contributes to the discourse on balancing environmental conservation and economic well-being by examining state-initiated livelihood projects in Mount Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary (MHRWS), Philippines, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As the literature emphasizes on impacts of livelihoods on communities, it is also important to deal on the dynamics in the conceptualization and implementation of these livelihoods from the perspectives and experiences of implementers and beneficiaries, to possibly ensure sustainability. The data from in-depth interviews with implementers and survey among partner beneficiaries, revealed that strategies like conceptualizing projects with defined principles and purpose, engaging and understanding the community, implementing adaptive and responsive strategies, providing sustained marketing and technical support, and establishing partnerships with agencies, serve as facilitating factors for these livelihoods. However, these projects are challenged by lack of sustainability plan, of coordinated governance, and of sufficient, full-time, and tenured personnel. Hence, while state-initiated livelihood projects could be sustainable given its (state’s) mandate and resources, there are also impediments due to some structural inadequacies.
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This article examines challenges and opportunities some rural small and medium enterprises (SMEs) face in maximising the value of Certified Benefit Corporation status. Eight case studies provide ...insights into the disadvantages of becoming, and maintaining, certification, and opportunities for leveraging its full value specific to the unique needs of these types of firms. Triangulation of three repetitions of interviews with owners and employees (n = 22) over two years, publicly available web-based sources (e.g., websites and brochures), and project documents for each case were analysed. No case study could report direct financial gains from their certification. Additionally, they reported limitations to obtaining, and maintaining, the certification, unique to rural SMEs, suggesting larger and urban firms have a competitive advantage in utilising this certification. Instead, they identified hiring and retaining quality employees, a greater sense of purpose and drive, and increased trust with other local businesses as added value. The article concludes with insights for increasing the likelihood of maximising value for other similar firms and opportunities for third-party certifying bodies to better support rural SMEs in maximising the value of this certification.
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This study aimed to describe the application of the management tool GUT matrix in a family dairy farm in the state of Acre to identify the main weaknesses and propose adequate tools to allow better ...management of the causes of the three biggest identified problems. This is a case study carried out on a single property located in the municipality of Rio Branco - Acre in May 2022. Information was collected by applying a semi-structured form with 267 questions. The GUT matrix allowed ranking the three main weaknesses of the property, namely: “lack of zootechnical bookkeeping,” “long calving interval,” and “failure in feeding management.” The management tools proposed to the producer, seeking to guide and organize the activities of the property, consisted of 5W2H and Ishikawa diagram.
Effective rural management requires utilizing novel managerial and institutional approaches to help adopt strategies and solutions that will make rural families resilient against various perils, such ...as drought. Thus, the present research aims to investigate the role of rural management in rural peoples’ resiliency against drought. This research falls under applied research and is descriptive-analytical. The statistical population of this research consists of 32 villages in the central part of the city of Ardabil with 8038 households. The sample size was estimated to be 384 people using the Cochran formula, which was distributed in proportion to the number of the heads of the households in each village. To investigate the rural management, four indicators in the form of 40 components, and to investigate resiliency against drought, four indicators in the form of 40 components were used based on previous literature. The exerts examined the face validity of the questionnaire, while its total reliability was 0.784 based on Cronbach’s alpha. Findings revealed that from among rural management indicators, environment management explained 0.703 of the resiliency variances against drought. Also, based on villagers’ perspective, the average resiliency indicators of preparations, reaction, and prevention were greater than the moderate rate, as the average resiliency indicators of recovery and reconstruction were lower than the moderate level (2.80). On the other hand, the MAIRCA technique indicated that the village of Amoughin held the highest rate of resiliency against drought, while Arvanagh held the lowest rate. The study also found that a set of systematic factors could explain the roles and developments of the rural management in villagers’ resiliency, as rural management can use an all-out vision to increase the resiliency of villagers against types of natural disasters and offer necessary warnings to them so that rural sustainability is provided.
Introduction Rural areas are a well-known research topic. Development in these areas is due to the efficiency of agricultural institutions that should ensure the welfare of these areas and employment ...and population factors that lead to the growth of welfare. In relation to these areas, development is to improve the living conditions and is the most important solution to solve the problems of the villagers. But for this issue, the first step will be to identify the challenges and obstacles to development in these areas, one of the main axes of which is to pay attention to the managerial performance of managers in these communities. Data and Method On the one hand, research is a qualitative research that seeks to explore and identify the factors affecting the management of managers in the development of rural areas, and on the other hand, it is a quantitative research, because it tries to describe these factors statistically by tests. From the point of view of research classification, based on purpose, research is of applied type. Because it seeks to apply the theories, regularities, principles and techniques developed in basic research to solve practical and real problems. Also, in terms of the possibility of controlling variables, the present study is a quasi-experimental research, because due to the post-event nature of the research, it is not possible to control variables completely. In the qualitative part of the research, sampling was done randomly and selectively from local residents. In the end, after reaching the theoretical saturation and reaching the repetitive answers, the qualitative part of the research was completed. But for the quantitative part of the research that sought to describe and identify the factors affecting the performance weaknesses of local managers for development in rural areas, first these criteria should be integrated into factors and sub-factors. On the one hand, this made the research criteria clearer and on the other hand, it made it easier to measure it in the researcher-made questionnaire. Therefore, the semantic units obtained from the interview were coded and classified in three stages. This classification was the basis for designing a questionnaire in the Likert scale. The validity and content of the questionnaire were also confirmed by a panel of experts after simplifying some of the questions and statements. The reliability of the questionnaire for Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.796, which indicates the appropriateness of the research tool for measuring the subject. The questionnaire was randomly distributed among the sample population which included 230 samples (according to Cochran's formula) from rural areas of Dolatabad district. The sample size for rural areas was proportional to the number of rural households in these areas. SPSS and Lisral were used to analyze the data. Thus, factor analysis was used as a multivariate analysis technique to evaluate the factors and to show their significance, the T-statistic model was used. ConclusionAccording to the results of the interview, 43 semantic units were obtained which after coding and classification, these criteria were classified into 26 criteria and 4 general dimensions. These criteria are the most important managerial performance of managers in the rural area, which has played an important role in the development of the rural area from the point of view of the local community. After identifying the desired criteria, these criteria were evaluated in a specialized questionnaire by 230 samples from the study population and analyzed in the LISR program. Based on the results, the value of t-statistic for all criteria is more than 1.96, which indicates a significant relationship between criteria and factors. Therefore, all criteria have the necessary accuracy to measure their own structure and each indicator only measures its own structure and the criteria are correctly classified in the form of key barriers. Based on the statistical values obtained, which are the most important results of the analysis, the highest factor load for administrative-organizational factors; Body; It has been social and economic. Therefore, the administrative-organizational factor is studied as the most important factor for the performance of managers in the development of rural areas. Results and Discussion Identifying and evaluating the performance of managers in the development of the studied rural area was in 4 main dimensions, administrative-organizational, social, economic and physical. In each of these factors, some criteria had the highest factor load. In the administrative-organizational factor, the standard of professional experience and activity of local managers; In the physical factor, the general standard of retrofitting houses in rural areas, which includes the sub-criteria of regulating suitable laws for rural constructions and providing suitable financial resources for retrofitting houses, had the highest factor load. In the social factor, the standard of effective communication and cooperation between managers and local people has been most important. In relation to this standard, it is clear that two-way and mutual communication between managers and local people will lead to cooperative management. This is a standard that the development literature considers its role in realizing development goals to be very important. In the economic factor, the criterion of paying attention to the economic interests of the village was the most important criterion, which had the highest factor load. In general, the findings of the research determined the challenges faced by managers in the development of rural areas. Of course, the subject of the research was only investigating the challenges of managers in rural areas, but the performance of local managers in some areas, especially in the physical-spatial field, has been appropriate. Construction and creation of new roads in the village, improvement and renovation of roads, security of residential units, etc.
Este trabalho teve como objetivo determinar indicadores de referência em propriedades rurais produtoras de leite na região Agreste de Pernambuco, sugerindo modelos de benchmark para propriedades ...identificadas como ineficientes. Foram utilizados como métodos o custo operacional de produção e Análise Envoltória de Dados (DEA). Os resultados mostraram que os produtores não conseguem cobrir seus custos a médio e longo prazo, e sofrem o impacto da depreciação e da mão de obra familiar, os investimentos empatam altos valores de capital. As melhores observações foram das propriedades 4 e 7, e com relação às melhores referências para os produtores ineficientes, destacaram-se as observações 46, 115, 94, 96 e 67, respectivamente. A caracterização real dos sistemas de produção de leite traz vários esclarecimentos sobre os indicadores de referência, ao se considerar os fatores que sejam comuns aos sistemas de produção e que podem estar associados a à eficiência produtiva.
Local communities have different perspectives, uses and values ascribed to the diversity of plant and animal species at their service. Yet, local knowledge of the species diversity and use values, ...alongside conservation decisions and practices, received inadequate scholarly discussion. This article explores how local knowledge of species diversity (flora and fauna) and use values inform decisions for conserving natural resources in the Zukpiri Community Resource Management Area (CREMA).
Using the qualitative research approach, seven focus group discussions were held with the Zukpiri CREMA Committees and supported with key informant interviews. The results showed that the CREMA hosts a great diversity of plant and animal species. Customary rules and regulations embedded in customs, traditional beliefs and practices are used in governing, protecting and conserving CREMA’s resources. Drawing on the organisational structure of the CREMA framework in Ghana, we suggest that the Forestry Commission of Ghana should intensify its collaborative role with the Community Resource Management Committees (CRMCs) to monitor illegal logging in and around the CREMA. Furthermore, traditional knowledge systems in line with conservational practices should be projected by the responsible state institutions.
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The European Union (EU) policies devoted to entrepreneurship in agricultural motivation represent a wide spectrum of methods and approaches. However, lack of attention to the differences between ...different types of entrepreneurs might decrease the entrepreneurship motivation policies’ effectiveness. Applying Decision Theory (DT), one of the management sciences, the article determines that non-hereditary entrepreneurs, which include ex novo and early retirement groups, are expected to provide greater contribution to the rural areas development and have different decision-making process in contrast to hereditary entrepreneurs. The article clearly shows a lack of policies focused on non-hereditary entrepreneurs in the EU and a limited effect of policies on ex novo and early retirement groups due to their underestimation of the agricultural sphere’s opportunities and limited knowledge about existing policies. The article suggests further application of DT in agricultural entrepreneur’s motivation and debiasing.
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The dynamics of globalization and the incorporation of new technologies in the rural environment have forced producers to adapt to new demands, among them, the inclusion of accounting and management ...practices, essential to achieve efficiency in rural properties. Based on this premise, it was intended to characterize the profile of rice producers in Vale do Rio Pardo-RS and verify the use of accounting instruments to control the activity. It was also sought to demonstrate the importance of rice farming, as an alternative production in a region where the focus is on tobacco, bringing relevant information about the cultivated area, production and productivity of crops at national, state and regional levels. This is an exploratory research, with a brief literature review, using secondary data and applying a questionnaire by telephone. We accessed 37 of the 63 rice farmers in the municipality of Rio Pardo-RS, second largest rice producer in the region. Besides data relating to the profile of producers, it was observed that only 43% of respondents maintain some form of control and only one of them was able to answer about the cost of production per hectare. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account all the existing diversity, whether of age, education, technical knowledge, existing infrastructure, mastery of the area, financing of farming, among others. It was concluded that it is necessary to consider the diversity, the different capacities and forms of action, the vast knowledge they bring with them. In addition to understanding the perception they have about the need for technical and managerial knowledge for the success of their business.
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