AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2008 | Volume:2 | Issue:3|Papers Count:12

Agriculture sector is certainly one of the most important parts of economy and due to added-value factor can be regarded as the premier productive sector. in the country. Despite having a strategic significance in materialization of economic goals of the country, and accounting for a noticeable share of the GDP, agriculture sector grabs a minor proportion of the country's investments. Taking some seminal theories of investment into account, one may argue that on the one hand investment in one sector is influenced by the incomes, and on the other hand, it is affected by investment costs. The current paper aims to investigate to which economic macro-variables (incomes and costs) is investment in Iran's agricultural sector susceptible; whether the demand for investment in agricultural sector is mainly influenced by the incomes of the sector or the varying investment costs are affecting the tendency of the investors? Assessing the non-linear demand model of investment suggests that investment demand in agricultural sector is mainly affected by the price variable. The price variable utilized in this study is the indicator of the price of agricultural products. In other words, adopting appropriate price policies in this sector will urge further investment. Also, the analysis of the above model indicates that investment cost is the second factor influencing demand for investment after price variable. Furthermore, the susceptibility of investment to the sector incomes outweighs its susceptibility to costs of investment.

Any risk in agriculture, finally, will lead in farmers' income fluctuations, but crop insurance programs only point to the yield risk. In this study Dynamic Stochastic Simulation (DSS) is used to investigate crop insurance effect on income stabilization. For this purpose, 67 representative farms with 31 farm patterns, in 9 regions were selected to simulate insurance program. The results indicate that insurance enforcement causes 13.4 percent alleviation in income fluctuations. Regions, soil fertility, wet land area, and production (or cost) structure had significant impact in the rate of stabilization. Negative impact of production cost revealed the direct effect of increasing return to scale on stabilization, and also possibility of moral hazard. The paper concludes the necessity of adopting approaches to improve the program effect, and it is suggested to consider substitute or complement programs.

This study used a Ricardian model to measure the impact of climate change on Iranian maize production and analyze potential impacts of further climate changes. The study utilized time series data for the period 1990-2004 pooled over 11 provinces. Results showed that climate change had significant nonlinear impacts on net revenue per hectare of maize production in Iran.The results also showed that increasing temperature and decreasing rainfall by the year 2100 due to increase in greenhouse gases emission, would cause reduction in land value by 29 % percent.

The major part of cooking oil consumed in Iran is imported and Ministry of Agriculture plans to increase oil seeds production in 10 years (2005-2014).The purpose of this study is to analyze the protection policies for summer soybean production in Iran. Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) is used to measure the impact of government policies on private and social profitability. The data used for analysis is based on questionnaires filled up by Statistics Department of Ministry of Agriculture during 1998-2004. The results indicated that summer soybean had comparative advantages in the provinces which were main regions for production of these products while government policies were not supportive.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effect of natural disasters on production of agricultural sector based on 1980-2005 time series data using Autoregressive Regressing with Distributed Lags (ARDL). The results indicated that natural disaster had significantly negative effect on production of agriculture sector. Policy implication of this study is provision of insurance for farm products and income besides development of investment to raise agricultural production.

The main objective of this research is to estimate recreation value of mangrove forest in Hormozgan province. Recreation value was obtained by the mean of WTP for mangrove forest. Contingent valuation method (CVM) and double dichotomous choice (DDC) questionnaire are used to measure willingness to pay (WTP) for mangrove forest. Logit model and maximum likelihood methods are used to estimate WTP. The result showed that 94.5%, of respondents were ready to pay for recreation in mangrove forest. The mean of WTP for recreation value of mangrove forest calculated 3491 Rial/person. Finally, the results support for greater extension services, facilities for eco-tourism, and emphasis on rural population for participation in tourism activities is mangrove forest.

The main objective of this study is to investigate factors affecting price stability in different sectors of Iranian economy. Data set including variables of exchange rate, interest rate, liquidity and price indices of agriculture, industry and services sectors for 1971-2003 obtained from socio-economic time series database known as PDS, published by Management and Planning Organization. In order to trace response of endogenous variables to imposed shocks to error term, Vector Autoregressive method was used. The results showed that monetary variables including exchange rate, interest rate and money volume as well as price of service sector affect agricultural prices positively. Increment of industry prices would increase agricultural prices. In case of industry sector, it was found that increase in interest rate, money volume and agricultural prices had negative impact on agricultural prices and only service sector prices rose industry prices. Prices of service sector were affected by agricultural prices and exchange rate negatively, while interest rate, money volume and industry prices had positive impact on them.

In this study, for determining the comparative advantage for long grain rice, the policy analysis matrix was used for period of 1980 to 2005 and effective factors on trend changes for gained indices from policy analysis matrix were calculated in three scenarios of foreign exchange rate. According to the results, foreign exchange rate variable on NPC and NPCI and shadow cost of tradable factors on EPC and ORC in El scenario of foreign exchange rate and foreign exchange rate on NPC, NPCI and EPC and shadow cost of tradable factors on ORC in E2 and E3 scenarios of foreign exchange rate had greatest effect and trend changes on ORC index showed that there was comparative advantage in this type of rice.

Economical integration of countries that have common economical profits and political issues can provide resources reallocation, production raise, trade and welfare for them. Regarding to globalization of international trade and economical integration, countries with identifying their characteristics in the economical world want to contact with their large trade partners.Because one of the main economical union of the world is European Union, and also is one of the largest trade partners of Iran (Iran for applying to demand of agricultural production import goods and export to this union), in this paper using panel data, import demand function for Iran is estimated and the effects of regionalism in this polar trading in trade and commerce of Iran was investigated. Results show that, economical structure of some union countries (Ireland, Belgium and Netherlands) is as near as Iran economical structure (while they are differ from social, political, cultural and etc), therefore, Iran can increase its trade relation to these countries and raising its commercial balance and welfare.

This paper examines the effects of economic variables on farm Size inequality in Iran. The farm size index (FSI) is developed as a measure of farm size inequality. FSI are calculated for 16 provinces showed great variation over time. The spatial and temporal (between 1988 and 2003) differences in FSI are explained by running a pooled, cross-sectional time-series model. Profitable grain farming requires relatively large farm size and equipment investments, which lead to a relatively homogeneous structure of grains farms. A larger variation in the size of profitable farm operations is possible in livestock. Findings show share-farming and agri business has inverse relationship with FSI, too.