AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2008 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:16

The main aim of this study is assessment of marketing margin model of red meat (beef and lamb) in Iran. In this article, using monthly data for beef and lamb in 1998-2004 years, Mark up and Relative price marketing models are estimated. Then, by using Goodness of Fit static, the relative price model was selected as suitable model for analyzing the beef and lamb marketing margin. Results showed that marketing margin of beef and lamb had positive relation with their retail prices. As a result of 10 percent increasing in retail price of beef and lamb, beef and lamb marketing margin would increase by 6 and 10.8 percent, respectively. Also, 10 percent increase in cost of meat slaughtering, marketing margin of beef and lamb would increase by 2.3 and 5.4 percent, respectively.

With Regard to importance of agricultural sector in economic growth, rural development and rural welfare improvement, in this paper, we investigated the relation between agricultural value added and its determinations with emphasizing on the detection of possible impacts caused by Openness during 1971-2004 periods. For this purpose we employed Johansen-Juselius and Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Models of Co-integration. Results showed relationship between agricultural gross capital flow, export and agricultural value added. Furthermore, the effect of openness on agricultural was added was significant and its estimated coefficient was 0.62. According to findings, agricultural value added was affected most by export and its coefficient was 0.82.

In this study, impacts of import tariff reduction on poverty indices were investigated using computable general equilibrium (CGE) approach which has been known as a firm approach to analyze the effects of a policy on economy as a whole. The underlying data base of this study is the social accounting matrix (SAM) of 2001 in which parameters of model were calibrated according to the households' survey including 2000 households organized into two groups (rural and urban). Although several indices are available to characterize poverty, the FGT (Foster - Greer - Thorbecke) was used in this study. Results revealed that in the base year, 25.43% of rural households and 36.7% of urban households were under the poverty line. Results also showed that poverty gap and poverty severity indices for both groups were continuously decreased with a 10%, 30%, 50% and 100% reduction on import tariffs, but improvement of two indices for rural households were more considerable than those for urban ones. Moreover, poverty gap index is expected to decrease by 4.01% and 3.33% for rural and urban households, respectively with 100% reduction of import tariff. At the same level of import tariff reduction, poverty severity index is also found to decrease by 4.6% and 4% for rural and urban households, respectively. The impact of all levels of tariff reduction on headcount ratio index was realized to be the same (lower than 1%) for rural households but headcount ratio index for urban regions with a 100% import tariff reduction, decreased by 2.33%.

In this study, first, methods of state interferences in wheat market are declared and then support policies for producers and consumers are measured and evaluated with OECD's indicators. The results indicated that producers support between 1373 and 1383 was positive and farm gate prices were higher than reference prices but consumer's support /indicator was negative in this period.

Various economic sectors contribute to growth of each other both direct and indirectly. In order to simulate these effects, a model consists of thirteen equations, six identity and seven stochastic equations was used. The model is an attempt to calculate indirect effects of agricultural sector on GDP through effects of agriculture on GDP of other sectors and response of nonagricultural sector to growth of agricultural sector. By exogenous income shock in each sector, macroeconomic growth multipliers have been calculated. Also, effects of droughts shock on GDP of various economic sectors have been investigated. Statistical time series data are collected from various official sources and internet sites in the period of 1971-2003. Macroeconomic growth multipliers resulting from exogenous income shocks were 1.6, 2.68 and 0.6 for agriculture, industry and service sectors, respectively. Net share of agriculture in increasing total GDP through industry and service sectors were 76 and 6 percent. Also, net share of industry in GDP growth through agriculture and service sectors were 67 and 22 percent, respectively. Since, agricultural and industrial sectors induced the most net income in each other, therefore, in preparing development strategies the emphasis should be made on the linkage between agricultural and industrial sectors. Also, the growth of service sector should be balanced in such a way to satisfy the needs of other sectors in the economy.

In this study long and short run effects of growth of agricultural exports on industrial exports and economic growth of Iran were investigated by using data during the period of 1348-1381. Vector Autoregressive Model with focus on impulse response function and orthogonal zed strategy under Choleski method were used. The results indicated that: in the long and short run, growth of agricultural exports had negative effect on GDP growth and the effect of agricultural exports in short run was positive but in long run was negative on industrial exports. Finally, integral diversification of non-oil exports, expansion of cooperation in export field and research and development units, government support in the field of agricultural exports are suggested.  

In this paper, three different methods including First and Second degree of Stochastic Dominance (FSD and SSD) and Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) were applied to determine the optimal strategy for wheat crop stubble management in Fars Province. Based on the all criteria, among seven different managerial alternatives, burning stubble strategy dominates the other strategies in terms of green yield and gross margin. But SERF has more applied advantages, such as processing different formatted data, displaying ordinal rankings graphically which makes understanding easier. Moreover, in SERF method there is no need for special software, and it can be done with only a simple spreadsheet.

Banana has a key role in the economies of some developing countries and contributes to food security, income and employment of rural population. In this study, economic, allocative, technical and scale efficiency measures were derived applying a nonparametric approach, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to a sample of banana farms in Zar Abad region of Sistan and Baluchistan Province in Iran. Results showed that, the mean economic, allocative, pure technical, and scale efficiencies are 83.4%, 95.9%, 86.9% and 94.9%, respectively. Economic inefficiency was mostly due to "pure technical" rather than "scale" and "allocative" efficiencies and it could be due to inefficient performance of the farmers' management. According to findings, farmers' production and income could be increased by the existing level of inputs and current technology. Therefore, some policies such as oriented-market input pricing and extension services were purposed.

As higher than 60% of Iranian rain fed lands has been allocated to rain fed wheat cultivation, therefore considering optimum use of production resources, in this product cultivation, is very important. This study analyzes productivity change in rain fed wheat production factors of main producer provinces and also influential level of productivity component of those factors in cultivating years, of 1999-2000 to 2004-2005, by non parametric method of data covering analysis method and Malmquist index. In this paper, production factors productivity is investigated by production yield in 10 providences for 6 years. Results imply that Mazandaran, Kordestan, Fars, Semnan and East Azarbayjan provinces have had appropriated productivity growth in all of these years. Also, there is significant correlation between productivity changes and efficiency changes in Mazandaran, Golestan, Fars, Markazi and Semnan provinces and significant correlation between productivity changes and technology has been seen in Golestan, West Azarbayjan, Isfahan, Khorasan and Markazi. Consequently, in all provinces studied, there is meanly significant correlation between productivity changes and technology but not any significant correlation between productivity changes and efficiency changes. Finally, many suggestions have been given for more appropriate policy-making.

Agricultural Products Insurance Fund (APIF) services have been delivered to farmers through private agents (IPA) since 2002. Attitude in this study is used as criterion to evaluate IPA performance. Both information acquisition of how insurants' judgment about IPA and recognition of factors affecting their value judgment are important. This study aims to examine factors affecting insurants' attitude towards IPA. A questionnaire was designed and its validity and reliability was verified. The stratified random sampling method was used for selection of sample in Fars province. Direct and indirect effects of different factors on farmers, attitude were measured by path analysis. The results showed that 3 of 9 factors namely: the range of insurants' expectations fulfillment, their attitude towards insurance and the availability of facilities had positive direct and significant effects on attitude. Two other factors namely age of insurants and their background about insurance had indirect effects on their attitudes. Based on the results of the study and in order to create and protect desirable attitudes toward IPA, following recommendations are presented: paying attention to meet insurants' expectations, focusing on agricultural insurance extension and education programs and desirable use of mass media specially radio and television.