Economy

Agriculture sector is actually known as an economic sector, as it is said that economic growth would be impossible in the absence of agriculture growth. Nowadays, by using accurate scientific researches as an inspiration source and investigating environment potentials and capabilities of every area we can achieve comprehensive agricultural development and principles. In this way, identification of development and underdevelopment levels of agricultural zones seems essential to start out to and make development planning of sustainable development. As compared to other places in our country, East Azerbaijan province has more appropriate sources of agriculture. So that about 19.2 percent of its total geographical area belongs to the cultivated lands of agricultural products. In this regard (i.e. the ratio of cultivated lands to the total geographical expansion of the area), East Azerbaijan has occupied the 12th grade of all provinces. In addition, after those provinces of Khorasan, Fars and Khuzestan, it has got the vastest cultivated lands. Investigation of combination of occupations based on the results from general census of population and housing in 1390 reveals the fact that the agriculture contribution of the province is about 21.3% which is above its average (19%) in the country. However, comparing different counties of the province we can find dramatic differences in terms of agricultural activities and its related sub-sectors. In this study, we use several indicators to investigate spatial inequalities associated with the development of agricultural sector in different counties of East Azerbaijan separated into several parts of agriculture, garden and animal husbandry and the mechanization level.

Considering the subject of the study, it is an analytical- descriptive one. Different counties of East Azerbaijan Province identified based on administrative - political divisions, have been chosen as statistical population of this survey. To determine its underdevelopment level and inequalities, 28 indicators have been used in four different sectors including agriculture, garden, animal husbandry and mechanization that can be observed with reference to the statistical evidence of agricultural background in East Azerbaijan. In this survey, the method of factor analysis in SPSS environment has been used to identify modulation index and its factors to be used as input in numerical taxonomy method. Finally, using hierarchical clustering method, these counties were classified according to the factor of clustering development rankings. This part of information was later appeared as a plan in the environment of GIS software. Indicators consist of: (1) Agriculture indicators: The ratio of irrigated lands to the total area of lands, method of operation by vine crops, forage crops, vegetables and cucurbits, industrial products, cereals, grains, irrigated and rain-fed wheat, irrigated and rain-fed barely. (2) Garden indicators: method of operation by garden products, dried fruits, stone fruits, granulated and pome fruits. (3) Mechanization indicators: the ratio of tractors, electro pumps, motor pumps, combine, tiller and distributed fertilizer to agricultural lands. (3) Animal husbandry indicators: The ratio of sheep and lamb, large animals, meat production, chicken production, egg production and milk production to the rural population.

Using statistic reports of agricultural activities in East Azerbaijan Province in 2010, we could make the standardization process of 28 indicators in the forum of four main parts consisting of 11 indicators in agriculture sector, 5 in garden sector, 6 in mechanization sector and other 6 in husbandry sector. Factor analysis was done on each of these sectors in the environment of SPSS software that reduced them into 3,1,2,2 factors in the same order that were later used as inputs of the numerical taxonomy method. Classification of the counties was done based on development rankings of each sector. Finally, the statistical method of cluster analysis was applied to the counties of the province to be gotten classified in four clusters by identifying homogeneous cities. Counties found in the first class include Malekan, Bonab, Miyane, then in the second class: Shabestar, Maraghe, BostanAbad, Tabriz, Oscoo, Azarshahr, Ajabshir, in the third class: Sarab, Hashtrood, Ahar, Marand, Haris, and finally in the fourth class: Jolfa, Varzaghan, Kalibar and Charoimagh. Agriculture is an economic sector itself, as it is said that economic growth would be impossible in the absence of agriculture growth. Nowadays, by using accurate scientific researches as an inspiration source and investigating environment potentials and capabilities of every area we can achieve comprehensive agricultural development and principles. A remarkable, tremendous difference can be found in agricultural activities of different areas and counties of the province. East Azerbaijan is made of a half developed western and a half underdeveloped eastern part. The half developed western consists of great centers of population with a high rate of civilization, medium and large industrial centers, main centers of service activities and a large amount of agriculture and garden products. Whereas, in eastern half despite its mineral-tourist potentials, agriculture still continues in its traditional form of rain fed with industrial workshops which are small and scattered and small villages of low population in the suburb of small towns. Developed counties are provided with strong communication networks, especially in the route of railways or in the nearby area. On one hand there are low land slopes in the west of the province and on the ther hand vast and fertile plains like Tabriz and Maraghe have changed the place to a natural absorption for doing more activities on. While the Eastern half is mountainous with more potentials in livestock and animal husbandry than the Western part.

After land reform, some actions have been done for rural finance by creating financial institutions such as credit cooperatives, Agriculture Bank and interest-free loan funds which were not successful in improving poor people livelihood. The studied area in this study includes a forest-mountain area that have small and sporadic villages and they are far from rural-urban continuum. In fact, these areas face with basic shortcomings because of their location in geographical isolation, lack of development of market, scattered villages, low population density and unavailability of services (including financial services). Researchers' preliminary studies in this area showed that in financial markets of the forest-mountain villages in Bandpey part of Babol county, for rural finance to meet their needs in micro level, include just officialpublic institutions and semipublic ones (agriculture Bank, credit cooperatives and Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation) that were not operating as rural financial institutions, so in the studied area this question is raised that in spite of the availability of financial institutions, why the level of financing services is low for villagers? Or in other words, why the available financial institutions could not be successful in attracting villagers? Therefore, the question is that what are the characteristics of financial institution for being successful in presenting financial services? This study aims to recognize optimality criteria in institutions that offer financial services in rural districts and tries to present a framework in rural financial institutionalization to help rural managers and development planners in rural financial domain such as Agriculture Bank, rural financial cooperatives, Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation and rural interest-free loan funds.

Ito consider the subject, a qualitative approach has been chosen in this study. So, 25 villagers that are residents of forest-mountain villages of eastern Bandpey in the county have been selected in a purposeful way; data collection has been done through in-depth semi-structured interviews to the theoretical saturation point. Following that, for more clarification and conducting in-depth interview, some follow-up and exploratory questions have been used. After each interview, all the statements were written on the paper. The obtained data from interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis method (by the framework of an inductive approach). To increase the creditability and acceptability of data, these methods have been used: simultaneous data analysis, continuous observation, review by supervisors and selecting the main informants; accuracy and authenticity of data (stability) have been considered too, regarding these indicators: maximum number of participants, desirable relation with participants, accuracy in recording data, using external researchers and supervisors, long time engagement with research and obtained data.

Discussion and Conclusion
On the major subject that is extracted is "flexibility". On the major subject that is extracted is "flexibility". Flexibility of rural financial institution means the flexibility in time duration for loan repayment that does not interfere with planting season and the time that farmers and ranchers should spend money for their works. The results show that when the time of loan repayment interfere with the time that small farmers do not have cash money, this leads to excluding some people from taking credits and more than that those who were able to take the credit, could not gain enough profit. Availability is a criterion in rural space that have low level of livelihood, in faraway geographical location is of great importance. In one hand, availability means physical availability. This criterion can be understandable when rural forest-mountain area is understandable. These areas face with problems because of dispersion of villages and their distance from urban area to receive services including financial services. In another way, lack of finance leads to irresponsibility. Considering the findings showed that if rural financial institutions were dependent to government subsidies, offering credits to meet villagers' needs would be uncertain all the time. Another criterion, a sub-dimension of availability, is "having responsibility regarding to the conditions that farmers face with a social-economic problem". In one hand, small farmers and ranchers' livelihood is always exposed to natural, social and economic crisis (especially in forest-mountain regions), and in another hand, their week financial support make villagers vulnerable to these kind of dangers. The obtained results showed that optimality of a rural financial institution is related to offering services in all dimensions of financial services especially loan, saving and insurance. Therefore, one the most important issues for optimality of the rural financial institutions is the capacity of saving for small farmers and ranchers; they have high desire for saving. Official financial institutions and semi-official ones could not support this dimension of villagers' need with a commercial approach. According to the findings, villagers do not consider financial institutions as merely a monetary institution; they expect an appropriate financial institution not only offer monetary services, but also they expect them offer social services that need investment, or assignment of subsidies on their necessary products for their agriculture. The study findings showed that the assigned small loan is a loan for agriculture not for the farmer, and it rarely considers the need of the villagers for consumption. It is suggested that researchers on institutional issues and service institution in rural districts consider these issues in the time of occurrence and with direct observations and interviews; they should familiarize with their challenges and by a topdown and bottom-up approach, they can present a suitable strategy for the same areas to overcome their problems.

According to the new definitions of regionalism, poverty reduction depends on the activation and promotion of local human and natural capacities in order to improve sustainable livelihoods and reduce rural and urban poverty. One of the deprived and poor places of the country is Kuhdasht County in Lorestan Province. according to the latest census of the Statistics Center, the population of Kuhdasht County is 166,658, 64,373 of which live in rural areas and 102,285 in urban areas. Considering unemployment as one of the indicators of poverty, its rate in Kuhdasht County in 2016 was 16 percent, which is higher than the national average. This unemployment rate is visible in urban and rural areas of the county.  Also, the net migration rate of this county is more than 600 people. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the factors affecting poverty reduction with emphasis on new indicators of regionalism in Kuhdasht. This study seeks to identify and analyze the impact of factors affecting poverty reduction in Kuhdasht County, for which statistical and structural analysis is used.
 

 Introduction
Many villagers depened on palm farming, in the date palm tree-growing regions of Iran. Nonetheless, the date markets are facing many challenges for some reasons such as unsanitary, lack of sales market, lack or absence of maintenance industries, long-distance from production to factory, dispersion of villages, low product prices, climate incompatibility, lack of proper access to capital, high waste and sale of low value-added products to market intermidearies. These challenges in Makkoran region, one of the country's date-growing regions, are more than other places due to climatic and environmental constraints and infrastructure deficiencies.
Date palm farming activity in Makkoran region has many problems in terms of marketing, price, exports, and required infrastructure; thus, the date product of this region are exported by middlemen often in bulk and low added value to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates and large cities in the country.
Therefore, the present study, in response to this need, uses the actor-network theory of Latour, Callon, and Law (1986-2009), aiming to identify the processes of translating actions and the spatial relationships between actors as a theoretical lens because according to Latour view (1987) actors (human and non-human) are negotiating and translating each other's goals to make a connection. Therefore, the present study seeks to answer these questions: What actors are involved in the date market of the Makkoran region, and what are the existing and emerging spatial relationships between these actors? Is there a significant relationship between them? In translation processes which actors and spatial relations need membership, expulsion, or reform?

 Methodology
This research employed an exploratory-sequential mixed-methods research design. The statistical population is 17493 date palm farmers in Makkoran region. Sampling was performed via a purposive-probability sampling method to determine the sample size via the "data saturation" criterion in the qualitative stage, and the "representation" criterion in the quantitative stage. The sample size consisted of 111 date palm farmers and 16 related experts in the qualitative stage and 376 date palm farmers and 32 experts in the quantitative stage. Qualitative data were obtained through in-depth semi-structured interviews with date palm farmers and experts, and quantitative data were obtained through a questionnaire from date palm farmers and experts. Then, based on "sequential mixed-methods analysis," qualitative data were processed and analyzed using NVIVO software, and quantitative data were processed and analyzed using SPSS software. According to Latour's argument (1987), the " translation " method made the final analysis and inference.

Discussion and conclusion
Based on research findings, sales status and the price of the date product improves from south to north of Makkoran region. Hence, situational and climatic actors play a crucial role in product sales status and price change, especially Mazafati dates in the south part of the region. These actors may force date palm farmers to harvest early (at the Kharak stage) and reduce product prices. To achieve their goals and interests, human actors (date palm farmers and governments) inevitably align with the tendencies of non-human actors (such as geographical location and climate). Also, according to local date palm cultivars, which almost all of them need refrigeration, and depending on how it is accessed, date palm farmers to the refrigerator and the capital have changed the product's price. These two actors (refrigerator and capital) and date palm farmers have faced severe challenges and obstacles in terms of sales and product prices. Hence, date palm farmers inevitably sell their produce to brokers at low and insignificant prices. Of course, this is not a one-sided situation; but with the constructive support of the government, date palm farmers can play a more constructive and effective role in raising capital and creating the necessary refrigerator. They can reduce the power of the two agents of the refrigerator and capital by changing the palm cultivars (expanding the dry cultivars without the need for a refrigerator) or selling access to the refrigerator so they can sell their product at a reasonable price. This issue causes them to be present in the date market with more power and influence.
Nevertheless, in the current situation, the alliance of these two actors with other actors (space distance, transportation technology, road location) has led to the widespread influence of traders in the date market and has weakened its functions. The capital actor has a more prominent role in this regard, As it has been able to change the tendency of most date palm farmers to use a refrigerator and, to their detriment, to ally with brokers (predominantly local and regional brokers). Of course, the non-use of cold storage is not only related to capital but also situational and climatic actors in the south region. Also, due to a lack of proper access to capital, date palm farmers inevitably accept the rate offered by brokers; Local and regional brokers, in a solid alliance with telephone and capital actors, have prevented both major traders from entering the market and dragged the refrigerator into their network. Hence they have severed or severely shaken possible and necessary links between date palms and date palm farmers with target markets.
Thus, multiple spatial relations between actors (human and non-human) exist. Meanwhile, date brokers have conquered the date market to the detriment of producers by creating a strong network of spatial relations and have found role and agency as the key actors. Often weakness and inefficiency of the main actors (palms and government) and the alliance of capital and cold storage actors with brokers have led to such a detrimental consequence; however, these spatial relations are transformed by the participation of new actors (non-native palms, cold storage, etc.).