Communication Strategies for Sustainable Animal Husbandry in Kohgilooyeh County: the Application of Evidential Reasoning

Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Rural Development Management; Faculty of Agriculture, University of Yasouj, Yasouj, Iran.

2 Professor, Department of Agricultural Extension and Education; Faculty of Agriculture, University of Shiraz, Shiraz, Iran.

Abstract

"Information", "persuasion", "dialogue" and "consensus building" were taken as the possible communication strategies to facilitate Sustainable Animal Husbandry (SAH) in rural areas of Kohgilooyeh County, Southwestern Iran. Also, various different aspects of SAH attributes were considered which include organizational sustainability, sustainable programs, use of proper media, focusing on target customers, and suitable monitoring- evaluation systems. The study was carried out using Evidential Reasoning, aMultiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM) technique, to choose the most appropriate communication strategy for SAH in the study area. Results indicated that, generally, "dialogue" was the first communication strategy that should be chosen for SAH. Of course, it was revealed that communication strategies would vary depending on the attributes of sustainability. More detailed results, especially about how to choose media based on the communication strategy, are presented in the body of the paper.

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