Analysis of the Fundamental Foundations of Sustainable Agricultural Development with Thematic Analysis Approach

A B S T R A C T
Agriculture is considered the axis of independence and development of any country. Due to the distinctive characteristics of the agricultural sector, this sector can be considered the driving force of the economy within the framework of economic development. In order to achieve sustainable agricultural development, in addition to determining the basic sectors for optimal investment, the challenges and potentials facing this sector should also be identified. In this study, the contexts of agricultural development were identified using the content analysis method. Information was collected based on semi-structured interviews with academic professors and experts, experts and stakeholders specializing in the subject of agriculture and the study of sources and documents. The findings show that 29 basic concepts were identified from 145 open codes, which can be divided into 9 categories of organizing themes. These concepts were divided into 9 categories including: structural and infrastructure, marketing, policy-making, educational and extension factors, economic, participation, water resources, attitudinal and supportive as the organizing themes of the research subject. The results of the analysis indicate that attention should be paid to member participation, farmer empowerment, changing attitudes towards raw product sales, improving water resources, improving infrastructure, and comprehensive and complete policymaking for agricultural development. Employment and unemployment, which are very important issues in rural areas, can be solved in general through agriculture and its development.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
In Iran, the development of the agricultural sector is a prerequisite for economic development, and until the obstacles to the development of this sector are removed, other sectors will not flourish and grow. In Iran, in particular, despite the long history, development policies have not yet reached the desired result, and the country's development path is facing wide challenges. For example, the review of economic development policies shows that in addition to macro-level approaches such as policies related to growth, eliminating unemployment and controlling inflation, and micro-level reviews such as policies related to businesses and households, regional approaches are also of great importance for explaining and making development policies. Because some uncoordinated development indicators in the country have created a huge difference between the provinces in terms of having some indicators. Therefore, according to the spatial and spatial location of Iran, focusing on the important aspect of development; This means that agriculture can accelerate the overall development process in the future. Accordingly, in order to achieve overall development, while identifying its most important challenges, it is necessary to consider the most practical solutions in order to use these strategies to target the efforts to achieve the development of the country in the field of agriculture.
 
Methodology
The present research was done with thematic analysis method. Thematic analysis is actually a method to recognize, analyze and report patterns in qualitative data. This method is also a process for analyzing textual data and transforms scattered and diverse data into rich, processed and detailed data. In this method, qualitative data are divided, classified, summarized and reconstructed, and it facilitates finding important patterns and concepts within the collection of qualitative data. In this method, based on a specific procedure and on three levels, basic themes (codes and key points in the text), organizing themes (themes obtained by combining and summarizing the basic themes) and overarching themes (higher themes that include the principles governing the text) as a whole, and roles of all themes are placed in that network according to the general and specific relationship with each other.
 
Results and discussion
The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed by thematic analysis method and the main themes were identified with the aim of explaining the elements of agricultural development. In total, based on the thematic analysis of the data, 29 basic concepts were identified that form the basis of the research model. These concepts were divided into 9 categories including: structural and infrastructure, marketing, policy making, educational and promotion factors, economic, participation, water resources, attitude and support as organizing themes of the research topic.
Economic theme with concepts: agricultural profit, agricultural productivity and transportation cost.
Structural and infrastructure theme with concepts: integration of agricultural lands, processing industries, agricultural mechanization, basic resources and knowledge-based companies.
Marketing theme with concepts: export, marketing methods, market access and elimination of dealers.
Policy theme with concepts: land use policy and competitive policy.
Educational and promotional content with concepts: needs assessment, indigenous knowledge and educational content.
Management theme with concepts: supervision, overview, system approach and parallel work.
The theme of participation with concepts: non-governmental organizations and the private sector.
The theme of water resources with concepts: underground water, water pollution, suitability of cultivation pattern with water resources and water allocation.
The content of attitudinal factors with concepts: the attitude of cooperative culture and the attitude of raw sales.
The topic of support factors with concepts: insurance of agricultural products, credit support and government support.
In the first stage, 145 open codes were obtained by open coding the conducted interviews. experts for each theme. The theme of economic factors has the largest share of codes, with 24 codes, which shows that experts emphasize more on this theme. In order to document the concepts and themes discovered, quotes from university professors and workers in this department were used, and conducting interviews and designing open questions according to the existing theoretical literature and studies in the field of agriculture, managers, as well as the experience of researchers and studies.
 
Conclusion
Agriculture as the axis of development in Iran is facing major challenges. The importance of agriculture as the most important driver of development has been the focus of researchers and policymakers in many future researches and studies. Available evidence shows that sustainable increase in agricultural productivity is a major challenge for every region of the world. Creating sustainable and resilient agriculture and achieving needed increases in food production are critical to achieving other sustainable development goals. Adopting the best management practices experienced in many developed countries is very necessary and vital for poor smallholder farmers in developing countries. Since the food system is one of the biggest development challenges that must be addressed to end extreme hunger and poverty without destroying the environment; Undoubtedly, the global food system is under considerable pressure, and human-induced climate change, water scarcity and pollution, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and other environmental hazards all threaten humanity's ability to feed the world's population.. Too much agricultural produce is lost or wasted due to inefficient harvesting and processing, lack of storage and spoilage, and diversity has been lost in many farming systems and regimes. In many poor countries, smallholder farmers go hungry because they do not produce enough food to feed their families and have no alternative sources of income. Accordingly, focusing on agriculture was and is one of the basic prerequisites for development.
In this research, according to the themes extracted, it can be said that the category of agricultural development is a concept that can cover other categories and also has an aspect of analysis. In a general view, it can be said that the studied society emphasized on the development of agriculture, which is included and abstracted from other major categories and is influenced by several factors. They acknowledged that if there are no economic factors and comprehensive and correct policy in agricultural development, planning, projects, executive activities, etc. will not lead to successful results and its negative effects will appear.
 
Funding
There is no funding support.
 
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
 
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
 
Acknowledgments
 I am grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.