AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2011 | Volume:5 | Issue:4|Papers Count:10

Water scarcity problem due to insufficient rainfall in majority of Iran provinces such as Fars is very important. The other factor that makes the water scarcity problem more intensive is overexploitation of groundwater. In this study, game theory was applied to determine the optimal groundwater exploitation and resources management in Firozabad plain. In order to achieve payoff matrix and extract the Pareto frontier for two conflict objectives (economics and environmental), the linear programming and aquifer overexploitation coefficient were used. Four conflict methods were applied to determinate the optimal groundwater extraction: non-symmetric Nash solution, non-symmetric Kalai-Smorodinsky solution, non-symmetric area monotonic solution and non-symmetric equal loss solution. A random sample of 128 farmers was selected from Firozabad County in 2007-2008. Results show that when environment and economics objectives are assigned equal important, the optimal groundwater withdrawals is 162.79 million m3 in 2007-2008.

This research aims to determine the household vulnerability in two microcredit programs, namely Women Microcredit Fund (WMF) and Self-Financed groups (SF). The panel data of monthly consumption and income for a sample of 280 households were collected in Fars province. Risk-sharing framework was used for determination of vulnerability of each households and groups. Results showed that two groups were accepted risk sharing. Moreover, 48 and 45 percent of member households was vulnerable in WMF and SF groups, respectively. Also, the vulnerability of member households in SF groups and non-member households in WMF was more than others. According to the results, microcredit programs can reduce and share the risk of household consumption, so expansion of them seems necessary.

Based on classic models of Dutch Disease, it has been forecasted that production in traditional and agricultural sector would decrease with an increase in oil price and income. In this paper, the impact of oil income shocks on agriculture sector of Iran was studied applying Hedrick Prescott filter, and also Two Stage least Square (2SLS) and simultaneous equation system was applied for analyzing oil income shocks during 1966-2007. The results indicated that the impact of oil income shocks on agricultural product is asymmetric. it means that negative shocks of oil income do not have a significant effect on agricultural production, but positive shocks of oil income has a negative and significant effect on agriculture sector.

In this study, regional total factor productivity (TFP) was calculated for Khorasan, Fars, and Khuzestan provinces, and for the country. Level of the contribution crops to regional productivity was investigated. The regional TFP for crops in Khorasan, Fars, and Khuzestan provinces are found to significantly contribute to that of Iran as a whole.  Wheat had the highest contribution to the growth of regional productivity. The decomposing regional TFP change into crops productivity, share of land area and crops mix indicates that crops productivity have had vital role in regional TFP growth. Moreover, the second factor (share of land area) was recognized as a determinant of increasing productivity in all regions. Share of land area resulted in a decreasing productivity only in Fars province. An amount of 1.48% of the productivity of Iran's and 6.85% of Khorasan can be explained by changes in crops mix. On contrary, this factor caused the productivity to decrease in Fars and Khuzestan provinces. In other words, crops mix switch from crops with lower TFP growth to those that are growing faster in Iran and Khorasan, but not in Fars and Khuzestan provinces.

Programming for favorable optimization of resources and production factors is very important in agricultural management. Agricultural activity is combined with uncertainty and it is necessary to take this subject into account. In the present study, Farming Projects in Fars province was prepared with utility-efficient programming. The results showed that at all levels of risk aversion, there was wheat in crop pattern. Sugar beet area decreased with increasing amount of risk aversion and tomatoes grown was deleted from the crop pattern. In addition, onion did not enter in the model in any level of aversion risk. The results showed that government intervention could lead to reduced production risk and therefore increase the level of a particular product (wheat). Therefore, targeted government intervention with decrease in cost and increase in social profit is necessary.

Excess water extraction in Parishan plain would cause a fall in groundwater and become salty, and it would cause to fall Parishan lake level and move lake water to wells. In this study, it is endeavored to investigate external effects of excess extraction from groundwater on wheat supply function by Johanson approach in 1986-2008. Result showed that quantities of supply increased after taking external effects of excess extraction on income because excess extraction from groundwater would cause to increase yield and consequently farmer's income. But compared to quantities of supply, before and after taking external effects of excess extraction on the pumping cost, showed that quantities of supply decreased after taking the effects, because more extraction from groundwater would cause to fall groundwater level and to increase farmer's pumping cost. At last, consequent of two effects of excess extraction had negative profit (loss) for farmers and would cause to decrease quantities of wheat supply and consumption of water.

In this study, in order to investigate measures of feed crops supply during Iran fourth program of development, the Nerlove partial adjustment model and system equations estimated by seemingly unrelated regression method were applied to time-series data of 1989-2004. Results showed that compensation of animal protein shortage require providing inputs and production factors, i.e. agricultural sector products, which should be prepared from internal production or import. Based on the results, current flow of import and production of these crops did not compensate shortage of animal protein at the end of the program, unless by applying mentioned approaches, increasing productivity, making use of modern production methods, employing experts and educated labors, etc. Yield of production would be increased and this gap would be filled.

There are various levels of agriculture development in different areas. So, there would be a heterogeneous case in order to observe such an event. This case might not lead to study and evaluate all the processes of development completely. The first step in planning and developing agriculture cases is to analyses the facilities and to recognize the potentials. So, this paper aims to determine the level of agricultural development in Fars cities by using numerical taxonomy method. Ten main agriculture indexes have been used. The statistics and data were taken from Fars agriculture database and annual statistics from 2003-2007. It can be derived from the study that some cities like Khorambid, Arsenjan, Mohr and Sepidan have developed remarkably in comparison with other cities. Besides, Kazeron, Lamerd, Ghir-o-karzin are placed in a lower rank of development except Farashband that is omitted from this list for being heterogeneous. Finally, some solutions have been suggested to develop various parts of Fars in order to develop agriculture.

The broiler industry is one of the main subsectors of agriculture in Iran. This industry is a risky business. Reduction and market risks cause fluctuations in the broiler producer's income. In this context, price fluctuation of day-old-chick is one of the main sources of the market risk. The objective of present study is modeling and forecasting monthly prices of day-old-chick in East Azarbaijan. To this end, the behavior of day-old-chick prices was specified with considering its characteristics, spatially seasonality by using regression-based model by applying seasonal unit root test (BM test) and seasonal Box-Jenkins models as the primary nominates for forecasting model. Results of seasonal unit root test indicated that the monthly prices of day-old chick follow a non-stationary stochastic seasonal process. Accordingly, the regression-based model is an appropriate modeling framework. While SARIMA is an alternative modeling approach, the RMSE of forecasting error suggested the superiority of the regression-based model over the SARIMA model. Therefore, the estimated parameters of the regression-based model can be used to predict the monthly prices of day-old chick in Iran.

In this paper, Zarrinabad forest management is examined with attention to economic effects of wood harvested according to the environmental goals with different levels of ecological. Environmental objectives include significant increase in deadwood, increasing the area of broad-leaved forest and old forest area. This analysis is performed using fuzzy linear programming that predicts net present value of wood production with respect to the defined constraints and crates various management programs for successive years through MGA method. This program act such that different environmental goals such as increasing areas of broad leaf forests, age of forests as well as  economic goals including  net worth maximizing can be achieved at the end of  programming horizon. Data such as old forest area, forest type, forest age and other information related to the third ten-year project study of this area forestry was provided from the Department of natural resources of the Sari city, and fixed and variable costs of timber harvesting and reforestation was collected from Neka-Choob Company. Results showed that net present value decreases after implementing environmental objectives.