Organic agriculture is being promoted in Iran to address environmental problems resulted from the use of chemical materials in agriculture. Despite many advantages of organic agriculture, the results of several case studies show that its adoption rate is still very low among farmers. The purpose of this paper is to review previous studies that investigate the main factors influencing and challenges of adopting organic agriculture.The review included journal articles and conference papers from 2007 to 2012. The results showed that Iranian farmers have strong motives for the adoption, yet face challenges in certifying, marketing, access to reliable technical information, and credits.Given the review of factors that govern farmers' adoption of organic agriculture, key mechanisms for promoting farmers' adoption are discussed. Further research is needed to learn how to bring these mechanisms into play in Iran.

Marketing innovation is essential for small industries to transform products into profit and therefore, understanding its nature and determinants is of utmost importance. This study aimed at understanding marketing innovation and its determinants in the 60 small food industries in the rural areas of Tehran province, Iran. Using a census sampling method, 111 managers of these firms were interviewed. Results showed that the firms' performance in marketing innovation is generally weak and a higher level of radical innovation in marketing is perceived compared to the incremental innovation. Also, a cause and effect relationship exists between both "product and organizational innovations" and "marketing innovation". Furthermore, while "incremental marketing innovation" was negatively influenced by formal R&D unit, product diversification, and the manager's years of experience, "radical marketing innovation" was affected by the capacity of production, product diversification, and managers' age and education. The study concluded that in order to boost marketing innovation, innovation should be made also in products and organization.Besides, in order to facilitate the process of marketing innovation, practical and up-dated trainings for managers, encouraging incremental innovation in marketing, product diversification, and improving R&D activities in the studied firms should be regarded.

Rural small enterprises especially those which are involved in processing and packaging food products play an important role in creating opportunities for employment and producing value added products in the agriculture sector. However, a major challenge for these enterprises is a lack of sustainability. In this research, innovation was examined as the key factor for sustainability of small rural enterprises. The findings show regional cooperatives perform better in terms of innovation compared to private enterprises. This advantage could be seen in both product/service and market innovations.

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The competitiveness of an organization relies mainly on its ability to adapt to new changes in its environments. Additionally, process and product innovation increase productivity significantly only when accompanied by an organizational innovation. This study was therefore carried out to understand organizational innovation and key factors which influence it in small rural food industries of Tehran Province, Iran. Findings show that radical changes are mostly pursued rather than incremental changes. Factors which influence "incremental" organizational innovations are firms age (negatively), product diversification, and firms' capacity of production (positively). Also the capacity of production, product diversification, managers' experience (positively) and competition intensity (negatively) influence "radical" organizational innovation. Finally, discussions are provided for improving the organizational innovation in the studied firms.