In this study, a procedure for selecting the optimal heat-accumulating material based on phase transitions for the economical maintenance of poultry farms by applying ANOVA to complex solid bodies’ ...thermodynamic parameters is described. The relevance of the topic is due to its importance for the development of an energy-saving technology based on the release or absorption of significant heat during the crystallization or melting of materials. The applicability of one-way ANOVA for the selection of the optimal material with a specific functional purpose was demonstrated. As result, the best composition for maintaining a normal temperature regime in poultry farms that could meet all the requirements imposed on heat-storage materials was determined. It was found that magnesium sulphate heptahydrate is such a material.
Renewable energy (RE) policies can play an effective role in the development of renewable resources. The main goal of this paper was to conduct a content analysis on RE development policies in Iran’s ...five-year National Development Plan (NDP) by investigating upstream national documents. To achieve the goal, 29 upstream documents related to RE were identified and analyzed through a systematic literature review. Then, a qualitative content analysis was applied to analyze the documents. The results showed that Iran’s current RE policies need to be reviewed, reformed, and strengthened. For example, lack of sufficient attention to renewable heat and fuel was one of the deficiencies of RE policies in Iran’s five-year NDP. The decentralization of policymaking in the unified organization was also one of the weaknesses in the policymaking process of the RE. Iran can develop sustainable and clean RE policies by using sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower, wave, and tidal power. The paper concludes that, although RE policies have the potential for development in Iran due to environmental, social, and economic advantages, they could face some infrastructural, managerial, socio-cultural, and economic challenges. Accordingly, effective and innovative policymaking is required to meet such challenges.
Climate change is thought to be having a negative impact on Africa's agricultural industry. Smallholder farmers who depend heavily on agriculture are more severely affected by climate change. ...Droughts and the depletion of water resources are two examples of how climate change affects production. Therefore, it is necessary to take steps to reduce the negative effects of climate change in Ethiopia on smallholder farmers in particular and agriculture in general. Therefore, the purpose of this analysis was to identify the factors that affect the increase in irrigation efficiency among farmers in northern Ethiopia. A total of 194 farmers were picked at random and questioned using semi‐structured questionnaires. Out of the 18 explanatory variables hypothesized to analyse the preference of farmers for using irrigation in the study area, only 13 were considered important. Of these 13 significant explanatory variables, 4 including health status, labour force members, availability of labour and perception of the advantage of using agricultural inputs were statistically significant with farmers' choice of irrigation.
Résumé
On pense que le changement climatique exercera un impact négatif sur l'industrie agricole africaine. Les petits exploitants agricoles qui dépendent fortement de l'agriculture sont plus sévèrement touchés par le changement climatique. Les sécheresses et l'épuisement des ressources en eau sont deux exemples de la manière dont le changement climatique affecte la production. Il est donc nécessaire de prendre des mesures pour réduire les effets négatifs du changement climatique en Éthiopie sur les petits exploitants agricoles en particulier et sur l'agriculture en général. Par conséquent, l'objectif de cette analyse était d'identifier les facteurs qui affectent l'augmentation de l'efficacité de l'irrigation chez les agriculteurs de l'Ethiopie du nord. En tout, 194 agriculteurs ont été choisis au hasard et interrogés à l'aide de questionnaires semi‐structurés. Sur les 18 variables explicatives supposées analyser la préférence des agriculteurs à utiliser l'irrigation dans la zone d'étude, seules 13 variables ont été considérées comme importantes. Sur ces 13 variables explicatives significatives, 4 variables dont l'état de santé, les membres de la main d'œuvre, la disponibilité de la main d'œuvre et la perception de l'avantage d'utiliser des intrants agricoles, étaient significatives de manière statistique avec le choix de l'irrigation par les agriculteurs.
Rural women's contribution to reacting to climate change is highly significant but has been largely marginalized due to gender roles. This gender discrimination makes them more vulnerable to a ...variety of threats. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the behaviour of female rice farmers in Mazandaran Province, in northern Iran, toward climate change adaptation using protection motivation theory (PMT). 173 female heads of households' rice farmers in Mazandaran Province were selected through stratified random sampling. According to the findings, the perceived vulnerability (β = 0.19), perceived severity (β = 0.33), self-efficacy (β = 0.4), and response effectiveness (β = 0.35) of female rice farmers have a positive and noticeable effect on responding behaviour to climate change. However, the response costs (β = −0.61) have a negative but noticeable effect on their adaptation behaviour toward changing climate. Research findings also show that climate change severely damages the physical capital of women paddy farmers. The damage caused by these climate crises has a greater impact on the production capacity, product quality, production costs and food security of female heads of households. The findings of this study will help define patterns determining the adaptation of women to climate change, and public and private sector's strategic planning and action.
Water shortages in rice production represent a formidable challenge for the world’s food, economic, and social security. Water is the most important single component for sustainable rice growth, ...especially in the world’s traditional rice-growing areas. Therefore, this study attempts to evaluate the improvement of rice water productivity in Northern Iran on the basis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis. This study is a qualitative-descriptive survey. A random sampling method was used to determine the sample size, and finally, 105 male and female rural facilitators in Sari city (the capital of Mazandaran Province located in Northern Iran) were surveyed. The results showed that the development of appropriate infrastructure, increasing new irrigation and drainage networks with the aim of increasing the use of efficient water technologies, was the most important strategy. The most necessary strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to improve the water productivity and management of paddy farms in the study area are, respectively, as follows: “fertile paddy fields and relatively good soils in most areas”, “weakness in the participation and interaction of users in water resources projects and paying attention only to the physical development of irrigation networks and ignoring the issues of network operation and farmers’ participation in the management”, “improving irrigation planning”, and “surplus harvest from Tajan River and drop in water level”. Obtained findings may be used to address water scarcity and water quality management issues in the agriculture sector. The results demonstrate that, under potential climate change and water shortages, SWOT may be seen as a guide for contingency initiatives.
Conservation agriculture (CA) has been promoted worldwide as an approach to sustainable resource management and better productivity. Promotion and adoption of CA in Iran have been receiving increased ...attention from the national government over recent years. Therefore, to speed up development of CA as a basis for sustainable development, drivers that influence the development of CA need to be identified and modeled. The main aim of this study is to present a comprehensive model for CA development in Iran by identifying the institutional drivers that influence its promotion and determining the relationship between drivers. At first, the drivers identified from the literature and interviews with experts, and the relationships among the drivers were explored and clarified using Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM). A cross-impact matrix multiplication was applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis, which was then used to categorize the drivers in four sub-groups. The results showed that creating a suitable organizational structure is a very significant driving factor for CA development in Iran. Strong driving power and weak dependence associated with this factor should be treated as a critical driver. If CA shall expand more rapidly in future, then Iran's government should invest in an appropriate organizational structure for it.
The aim of the present research was to analyze the farmers’ intention towards participation in the management and conservation of wetlands through the lens of the extended theory of planned behavior ...(TPB). To do this, a cross-sectional survey of Iranian farmers was carried out. To select the samples, a multi-stage random sampling process with a proportional assignment was employed. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability were verified using various quantitative and qualitative indicators. The results of the extended TPB using structural equation modeling showed that four variables, namely moral norms of participation in management and conservation (MNPMC), attitude towards participation in management and conservation (APMC), subjective norms towards participation in management and conservation (SNPMC), and self-concept about participation in management and conservation (SCPMC) had positive and significant impacts on intention towards participation in management and conservation (IPMC). The results also revealed that that entering MNPMC and SCPMC into TPB could increase its explanatory power. Also, the fit indicators supported the extended TPB. From a practical point of view, the present study provides justifications and insights for the use of MNPMC, APMC, SNPMC, and SCPMC in policies and programs intended to encourage farmers and local communities to participate in wetlands management and conservation.
The paper investigates the technical efficiency of conventional and organic dairy farms in Estonia in the period 2006‒2015 using Farm Accountancy Data Network. We analyse self-selection into organic ...farming using the propensity-score-matching approach and explicitly test the hypothesis that organic and conventional farms apply homogeneous technology. We find that organic farms are less efficient. However, the difference in technical efficiency between organic and conventional farms decreases substantially when the technical efficiency assessment incorporates the use of the appropriate technology. The lack of growth of technical efficiency over time indicates that there might be a lack of knowledge in organic milk production that hinders its development. Since technical efficiency increases with farm size, it is important that organic dairy farms increase their scale.
•Accessibility to transportation lifeline is a vital issue for commuters.•The cost and time of travel are important in finding a suitable place for travellers to live.•Access to transportation lines ...affects the socio-economic aspects of their lives.•Fuzzy model is used to measure the quality of life of passengers.•Fuzzy model provides accurate information about desirable residential locations.
Having a comprehensive knowledge about commuters’ access to transportation lifelines can empower the urban planners, who are responsible for the development of infrastructure and the facilities that support approaching sustainable development. It is also beneficial for commuters to find the optimum place of residence. Access analysis is always involved with complexities that are mostly originated in the challenges of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and uncertainty. In this paper, the results of the access analysis concerning different transportation options are combined in a fuzzy inference system in order to identify the most appropriate place of residence for commuters in Karaj city, Iran. In the first step, the access maps based on the available means of public transportation and also the distance to capital Tehran, were generated. Afterward, the rules and configurations of the fuzzy inference system were calibrated through collecting the opinions of commuters’ society and the desirability map was generated combining the access maps. The achieved results were evaluated with Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). It is regarded that the proposed fuzzy model is capable of providing more detailed information about the desirable residential locations as it gathers deep knowledge through fuzzy rules and provides nonlinear modeling of access.
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