اثرات تبديل روستا به شهر بر بخش كشاورزي مناطق روستايي : مطالعه موردي شهر اژيه در پاياب زاينده رود

Impacts of Rural-Urban Transformation on the Agricultural Sector in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Ezhieh Town in Zayandehrood River Shoal

One of the most important debates in Iran is related to the development of towns as a basic initiative for the development of rural areas and prevention of the burgeoning of urban problems. Considering this and the functions and relationship between towns and agriculture, the main question of this study is whether the rural-urban transformation can be counted as a step towards the strengthening of agriculture or its weakening. In this study we selected Ezhieh town as our study site which has been transformed in to a town in 1996. It is situated in plain part of Esfahan county. The paper studied the agricultural situation there and its peripheral areas. The findings indicated that although the transformation of rural areas to towns has created some problems for livestock producers, but it has no impact on the size of agricultural lands. This practice would lead to the stabilization of population and absorption of peripheral villages. Increasing the number of young and literate people in the agricultural sector have positive impacts such as youngness of population and improvement of literacy among labour force in this sector. In total, the advantages of rural-urban transformation are more than its disadvantages for agricultural sector.