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Vermicomposting, or using worms along with bacteria and fungi to recycle agricultural and organic wastes into nutrient-rich bio-fertilizer, has a variety of uses including protecting plants from disease. Through semi-structured in-person interviews, vermicompost practitioners across Kermanshah Province of Iran were surveyed to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of this emerging technology. The results provide useful implications for agricultural policymakers in general, and, in particular, for farmers who are seeking diversified sources of income. For both vermicompost practitioners and academicians alike, the SWOT analysis methodology combined with Analytic Network Process (ANP) analysis has implications for other types of agribusiness.

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Rural cooperatives, as a small member-owned organizations, are the potential to facilitate socio-economic development in rural areas. Despite this fact, in Iran and many other developing countries, they have not had remarkable successes in this regard. Because strategy formulation and management is a plan to obtain far-reaching development effects of any organization. This study aimed to present a hybrid method to formulate and choose strategies for rural cooperatives development. It combined SWOT analysis, TOWS matrix, and the Analytic Network Process (ANP). We applied brainstorming technique to analyze the external and internal environment of rural cooperatives using the contributions of an experts’ team comprising 10 individual CEOs of rural cooperatives and senior employees of the Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives. When this team identified key SWOT factors, TOWS matrix was constructed to create good strategic alternatives. Finally, ANP was applied to prioritize the strategies. According to results, 19 key strategic factors such as lack of management knowledge (W4), and ability to improve value and supply chains (S4) were identified. In addition, this team identified 11 strategic alternatives which among them Implement public policy and provide technical and financial services (SO2), Facilitate procurement of inputs and develop supply and value chains (SO1) and Involve rural cooperatives in policy planning (ST1), had greater priority in Iran. The experts’ team believed that the presented combined approach helps decision makers and managers to make and choose the best alternative strategies and factors that affect rural cooperatives development.

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Rural tourism is considered as a process in rural development that facilitates the development by providing complementary agricultural activities and increasing income. Such a process can boost employment, improve the quality of life and result in a balanced and appropriate distribution of services and facilities. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate and to analyze rural tourism development strategies for Doroodzan District of Marvdasht County. To this end, a descriptive-analytical research method with an applied-developmental approach was used. Data were gathered via field work and a predesigned questionnaire. Initially, rural tourism development strategies were identified using SWOT analysis model. Then, a Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to rank the strategies.  The results show that the best strategies for the development of rural tourism in the area are aggressive strategy and defensive strategy, with scores of 0.2772 and 0.2598, respectively. Furthermore, based on the ANN, it was revealed that official efforts to develop plans to expand rural tourism and to create jobs is ranked as the first priority. 

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This study aimed at characterizing the livelihood of communities in term of their assets and opportunities and identifying and describing the corresponding market segment(s), as well as devising a suitable marketing strategy that would ultimately lead to more effective community engagement. A socio-economic questionnaire was designed to elicit basic numerical data on olive production, and marketing system of olive and olive oil, and agricultural practices. The study was conducted during 2014-2015 for 155 farmers, distributed in four sub-governorates in Karak Governorate. Research findings and SWOT analysis shows that the Jordanian Olive Sector in general, and Karak Olive Sector in particular, has a good potential to grow and expand further, particularly in light of recent developments that the sector has undergone and the modernization of olive oil presses. However, the sector has a number of weaknesses that are restricting it from realizing its growth potential. Key weaknesses are related to fragmentation of the sector, labor availability, skills and work-ethic issues, marketing and branding, packaging, warehousing, lack of coordination with the olive oil presses as well as limited financial and management planning know-how. Finally, study of the enterprise budget of olive crop showed that the rate of olive oil production per hectare reached 650 kg, the average price was US$ 5.5 kg^-1, the Gross margin was US$ 2009 ha^-1, with US$ 692 net profit.
 

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The present study aimed to identify strategies for the application of pro-environmental technologies for greenhouse vegetable production in Tehran Province, Iran. It is an applied research type whose main instrument is a questionnaire. The population of the study consisted of 109 experts in Tehran Province, of which 86 experts were selected by stratified random sampling method (based on Krejcie and Morgan’s table). The questionnaire was revised with the help of the experts who had significant experience in crop protection to ensure the validity of the instrument. A pilot study was conducted on 22 experts in Alborz Province to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s Alpha scores were acceptable for different sections of the questionnaire (0.71-0.82), so, the instrument was reliable. The research methodology is descriptive, and the SWOT analysis was used. First, the internal environment was analyzed to prepare a list of strengths and weaknesses in applying pro-environmental technologies, and then, a list of opportunities and threats were identified by analyzing the external environment. Some derived strategies include the development of appropriate mechanisms to control the sale and use of pesticides by removing barriers to registration, mass production, storage, handling, transport and consumption of biological agents, and reinforcement of the knowledge of greenhouse owners regarding biological control.
 

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Among the key strategies in higher education is to prioritize the development of the entrepreneurial university. In this regard, the University of Applied Sciences and Technology (UAST) is one of the main institutions involved in vocational higher education, especially in the agricultural sector, which aims to help graduates acquire the knowledge and skills they will require. To this end, the university needs to plan for and develop entrepreneurial educations in its training system. Accordingly, the present study aimed to strategically analyze entrepreneur UAST in the agricultural sector. The statistical sample included 19 individuals, who were presidents, deputies, and managers of a university or managers of agricultural applied science and technology centers. After interviews and reaching theoretical saturation, the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of the agricultural applied sciences and technology centers were specified. The results of the SWOT matrix show that the aggressive strategy (SO) is the most appropriate strategy for the agricultural centers of UAST. The most important strategies within this approach included ‘organizing and developing agricultural applied sciences and technology programs in a balanced manner’; ‘designing and implementing a province-wide educational need assessment model for the agricultural sector’; ‘developing agricultural modular curricula and getting involved in new labor market potentials with the aid of the executive agencies’; ‘enhancing the quality of agricultural training components’; ‘developing financial resources and the use of the existing potentials of the agricultural sector with no financial burden on the government’; ‘basing decisions on research’; and ‘setting policies based on the modern agricultural and natural resources’ technology’.