AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2017 | Volume:11 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:12

Given the importance of biodiversity and diversity of production activities in stability agricultural ecosystems and the scale of production and economies resulting from it, present study investigated link between diversity and scale of production with production factors productivity in Mahidasht plain of Kermanshah province. For this purpose, 210 questionnaires in 1394 by two-stage cluster sampling completed and the information required have been collected. From Tornqvist-theil Index for calculating partial, multiple and total factor productivity, from Composite Entropy Index for calculating the level of diversity and from total number of livestock and area under cultivation index have been used for calculating scale of production then with averages comparison test the survey was conducted. the results show that greater diversity have a significant and positive impact on total factor productivity in the agricultural sector and larger scale have significant and positive impact on total factor productivity in the livestock sector and entire farm. It also farms by more diversity have a significant and positive impact on the partial productivity of chemical fertilizers, multiple productivity of fertilizers and chemical pesticides and multiple productivity of fertilizer, pesticides and water. small-scale farms and farms with high diversity than any other acted in maintaining and improving environmental quality And in order to the increase in total factor productivity must be farms (especially large-scale farms) to proceed toward greater diversity. so recommended by applying the proper policies from policymakers and agricultural extension agents, specialized and large-scale farms have gone towards diversify productive activities, addition to the efficient use of resources and production facilities, an important step in line with sustainable agriculture and improving environmental performance to be taken.

Some studies revealed that, where the level of regional development, climatic conditions, and the relative food prices are considerably varying across regions, determining one national poverty line for all the regions may not disclose regional disparities and does not provide a true picture of poverty in the country. In such circumstances, specifying regional specific poverty lines are preferred to the one national proverty line. The present study tries to test the suitability of the national poverty line in measuring the level of poverty in the provinces of Iran, using the revealed preference principles. To this end, provincial absolute poverty lines are estimated and tested for utility based consistency using revealed preference theory and data on food consumption patterns of Iranain households, generated by the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute and Statistical Centre of Iran in 2012. Results indicate that in most of the provinces, the estimated absolute poverty linesare not consistence even after imposing some adjustment. Consequently, the use of one national poverty line would not appropriately reflect the povertly lines in different provinces of Iran. This suggests that a separate poverty food basket is required to be specified for each of the provinces based on the more available food items in each provinces, and a provincial poverty line has to be defined accordingly.

The stability of trade patterns may cause economic stability inside the country and increase competitive power at international trade for any country. Therefore, in this article was investigated the trade patterns of selected MENA countries have been identified in three sectors of agriculture, industry and mines, and energy by the aid of calculation of some indices such as Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA). The needed data and information were collected from World Bank website for calculation of the given indices in form of panel data during years 2000- 2014 for three sectors including agriculture, industry and mine and energy. The results showed that the trade pattern for the aforesaid countries has been sustainable in agriculture and energy sectors for long run. However, trade pattern was variable for short-term and Specialization level has been reduced in these countries in terms of trade. In these conditions, governments can contribute to the sustainability of their business models with determining exported goods that have an advantage in different sectors and provide better conditions for trade their goods. Iran due to having active labor force and various advantages in different sectors among MENA countries could provide favorable conditions for itself. Therefore, many studies need to be done in this area to define trade positioning and increase competition power in the region and the globe.

Self-sufficiency in wheat production and ensuring cheap bread supply have been the major goals agricultural and food policies in Iran since the revolution from now. Several policies have been adopted to achieve these two contradictory goals, among them price policies have been pervasive. Therefore, in this study it was tried to investigate the government support price policies in the wheat market using a calibrated regional partial equilibrium model. Results revealed that the mentioned policy scheme is associated with net social welfare loss, therefore, wheat market liberalization is more an obligation rather than a scientific guidance.

During recent decades, overuse of production inputs in order to improve yield and at result destruction of environment, is doubled the importance of sustainable agriculture and production continuity with conservation of natural resources. In this regard, the current research aims to analyze agricultural and natural resources sustainablity factors in East Azerbaijan province using Factor Analysis. The required data and information have been collected from agriculture and East Azerbaijan regional water authority and statistical yearbook of counties and East Azerbaijan province. The results of study showed that five factors, social survival, infrastructure support, economic viability, environmental conservation and sustainable farming operation based promotional support services that will encompass a total of 16 indicators, more than 70 percent of the variance in sustainable agricultural and natural resources of the province East Azerbaijan explain. According to the results, we recommended that policies to improve the quality of life in rural areas and increased amenities and services, such as health care and education in rural areas, to act in the sustainability of social survival. It is also recommended infrastructure services such as agricultural processing industries, agricultural cooperatives and mechanization facilities develope in rural areas, because these factors can play an important role in reducing the cost of intermediation and production and increasing the added value of agricultural sector productions.

Risk in agricultural activity has been more visible because of its dependence on the environmental factors. One types of risk is crop yield risk. Given that insurance is one of the ways to deal with such risks, so in this study, has been tried to examine the effect of crop insurance and lack of it on cropping pattern in Mazandaran province. For this purpose, Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) approach has been used in the form of Mixed Integer Mathematical Programming. Also the results of mentioned model were compared with the results of a risky model such as MOTAD to show the superiority of CVaR. Data used are based on the crop year 2010-2011 and GAMS software was used to estimate the results. The CVaR estimation results indicate that lack of crop insurance will cause to cultivate paddy rice and soybeans in the Mazandaran province but in terms of crop insurance, cultivate and insurance of corn is added to paddy rice and soybeans. The comparison of the semi-variance to actual returns ratio in MOTAD model than the CVaR model shows this index is higher in MOTAD model. Based on this result, is emphasize the use of CVaR model in the estimation of risky cropping pattern. Finally, the results show that expected profit in terms of crop insurance is more than lack of insurance that it could be effective in persuading farmers to adopt the insurance and proposed cropping pattern.

Price volatility and volatility regime switching of Iranian important livestock markets are modeled using hay, sheep, calf, mutton, and beef monthly return series over the period of April 1992 to March 2014, using Markov-switching generalized autoregressive conditional hetroscedastisity models. The results suggest the existence of two volatility regimes in all studied markets and frequently switching from one regime to another all except for hay. Hay market is the most homogeneous market in terms of volatility regime switching while mutton market is the most variable one. According to results, although the high volatility regime lasts less than low volatility regime, persictency of high volatility regime (at least 5 month) in producer and retailer meat markets and frequently switching from one regime to another lead to uncertainty of investing in meat production. It also leads to unpredictability of market condition and variability of consumer’s welfare.

The purpose of this research, is economic ranking of some kind of cultivated wheat in Iran via TOPSIS. Wheat is the most important agricultural product, so increasing product and selection of appropriate kinds, have been considered. In this research some kind of cultivated wheat in Iran according to economic basis such as grain performance, planting to maturity, weight of one thousand seeds, plant height, in control, salinity and drought conditions has taken from some related articles. The criteria were determined according to their importance in production and due to the positive or negative role in the production and ranked via Excel and TOPSIS technique. The results show that “Arvand 1” in control and salinity conditions, with relative proximity index 0.96 and 0.99 is the best wheat kind. “Karaj 1” and “Chamran” in drought condition are premier kinds. In addition, using statistical software and Freidman test, 3 hypothesis were presented. This research has proved the TOPSIS technique in economical ranking of wheat and its differences with one direction aspect. It is recommended to research total wheat cultivars in different areas of Iran with different climates and with economic criteria with TOPSIS technique.

Empirical works attention to economic growth sources resulted in introduction of different types of capital. Recently, social and environmental capital has been considered. Regarding the issue the objective of this study is to analysis contribution of different types of capital to the Iranian economy growth. To get the objective, neoclassical growth model as well as data for 1974-2010 was applied. Capital includes physical, human, social and environmental capital. Environmental capital is considered as damage cost of CO2 emissions. Internet access and phone access were used as proxies for social capital. Also, literacy rate, primary school enrolment rate and university student were applied as proxies for human capital. It was also assumed that technology is embodied in physical stock in addition to its accompaniment with labor. The results showed that physical capital accounts for the highest contribution to Iranian economy growth with return of 0.3-0.4. However an insignificant role was left for human and environmental capital. Social capital contribution was found, to some extent, acceptable and positive as it its contribution is as one-third to one-forth as that of physical capital.

In addition to wood production, forests have many environmental and social resources that most of them are often lacking in the market. In this paper, 13 cases of ecosystem services forest ecosystem of Kiasar national park in north of Iran from an economic perspective was considered and they have been evaluated to various approaches. In this study direct market valuation methods, transfer of benefits, methods based on cost, replacement cost approach in order to determine the value of non-wood products, recreational and conservation values, soil and water conservation value functions, the functions of regulating gas and construction of soil was used. The results of this study showed that the total economic value of ecosystems forest national park Kiasar in 1393 has been 2132.64 billion Rial. In this study, the functions of water conservation, soil conservation, gas regulation, construction of soil, manufacturing, recreation and ecosystem conservation forest national park Kiasar respectively was 1620, 36.03, 297.70, 5.39, 0.057, 133.45 and 40 billion Rials. Therefore, water conservation functions and regulate gas respectively 75.96, 13.96 percent has been allocated the largest share of the total economic value of ecosystems into Kiasar forest national and construction of soil functions with 0/25 percent and productive function to 0/0002 percent has been allocated the least share of the total economic value of ecosystems forest national park Kiasar. The results indicated that value of national park Kiasar aspect of environmental is most important of production aspect.