JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:1 (21)|Papers Count:10

Improve productivity as one of the most important resources for economic growth means to use effective and efficient production of all resources including labor, capital and energy. in our country improving energy efficiency is particularly important. In this study, energy efficiency in the agricultural sector are calculated with partial productivity indices and then the most important factors affecting energy efficiency in the agricultural sector has been studied with the pattern Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) and annual data for the period 1356-1386 of Iran. The results show that the average investment per unit of energy consumption, real wages of labor, average labor per unit of energy, the real price of oil products and the ratio of the total consumption of electricity consumption in the short term have positive effect on energy efficiency. Variable of proportion of total energy consumption in the long-term has positive and significant impact on energy efficiency in the agricultural sector.

The fishing in Iran's south sea resources and Persian Gulf Zone is so important for these areas and country's economy. Fishing business makes a various employment and incoming opportunities for natives, and it has an essential role to provide a Protein, and nurture families of urban and rural areas. Up to 40 commercial fish species with a shrimp are fished in Persian Gulf. A systematic management and programming in marine resources are essential for preserving sustainability in marine resource, and achieve to economic, biological, social and political goals. In this paper, the results of running a programming model are shown in short and long run scenarios. Generally, the results of mentioned scenarios show a decrease of activity and number of 20-50 or up to 50 tones fleet's vessels, and replacement of them by the first and second class vessels (20-50 tones vessels).According to these results, there is a decreasing a vessels' activity in central and southern fishing areas, and there is an increasing an activity (effort and number of vessels) in northern fishing areas. It's an important point that the results in long run scenario are more conceptual than short run scenario, and has a further change in comparison of base scenario.

This study concerns with calculation of Iran's bilateral trade costs and major influential factors on trade volume for three commodity groups including: agricultural, non-agricultural and total. Main finding reveal that over the period 1995-2010 weighted average of trade cost for three commodity groups has declined by 14, 13 and 13.5 percent, respectively. This reduction, however, was greater for UAE, Brazil, Switzerland and China for agricultural commodity and China, UAE and India for other two groups. Also, trade growth Decomposition indicates that income growth and trade cost reduction are main effective factors on trade volume variation with 3, 67, 51 and 97, 33, 49 percent of trade volume variation for three commodity groups, respectively. Hence it's recommended to pay special attention to trade costs in arrangement of trade relations.

Food regimes of the most people in the world particularly in developing countries are deficient in protein. Since the animal protein play a main role in human nutrition, therefore, its quality and quantity should be considered. So it is necessary to study the cost structure as well as the potentials of the broiler industry. The current study attempted to investigate the share of major inputs utilized in the broiler industry. Data collected from 74 broiler farms using simple random sampling method from Sanandaj for the agricultural year 2012-13. The results showed that, feed cost with 61.15 per cent ranked first among others variable inputs in study area. In addition, the result for Morishima elasticity of substitution showed that, relative share cost is increasing. And average ES for all data follow increasing returns to scale. But this can not be extending to all the cases stalwartly. So, it is not necessary to emphasis on increasing to the scale but other criteria such as management methods should be considered in the large broiler farms.

According to its economy and some criteria such as food security, livelihood security and rural development each country tries to select its special products. Limitations of such special products list lead researchers to sort indicators and select important products. Based on WTO negotiations in Doha round, each country is needed to choose tariff lines for special products. Criteria defined in Uruguay and Doha rounds are general and useable for WTO joined members. This paper presents a methodology for identifying “Special Products” and evaluates indicators measuring the importance of agricultural commodities to meeting the three criteria agreed for designating Special Products (food security, livelihood security and rural development). Average of five years (2006-2011) data, normal sorting and AHP methods are used in this study. The results show that wheat with share 37% in per capita energy consumption is the first special product for Iran. Oil, rice, sugar, and milk with 14%, 9.5%, 8.7%, and 4.5% share in energy supply, are others Iranian agricultural special products, respectively. The result of this study not only useable for WTO joint process but also can be used in policies such as pricing and tariff import rate.

This study seeks to investigate the effect of financial market and FDI on Economic Growth of Agricultural Sector in some Developed and Developing Countries through GMM approach in 1984-2011. Hence eight patterns of economic growth, for each country group, were specified that half of them are related to the capital market and the other half are for Money Market. The results show that, financial market development, in general, has a positive effect on Economic Growth of Agricultural Sector. But this relationship in developing counties, in comparison with developed countries, is not considerable. Also in both country group, FDI, has strengthened the economic growth of agricultural sector, but in developing countries this relationship is weaker. On the other hand results show that in developing countries the impact of financial market development & FDI on economic growth of agricultural sector is, mainly achieved through money market while in developed countries it is of the capital market. Since, according to the results, the development condition of financial market in developing countries is not so good, and this is the one of the major cause of the weak relationship between financial indicators and the economic growth of the agricultural sector, It is possible to improve the condition of financial market and economic growth, through the implement of some policies, such as, reducing government intervention in financial markets, facilitating the Entry of privet sector in economic, Enhancing investment security, providing proper guarantees for investors and Financial Transparency.

The present study aimed to identify and rank the factors influencing the farmers’ satisfaction of rice crop insurance in Mazandaran Province during the crop year 2011-2012. The required data is obtained through 82 questionnaires completed by selected expert and leading farmers in different townships of Mazandaran. In this study, at first, t-test is used in order to identify factors affecting farmers' satisfaction of the crop insurance and then Friedman test and analytical hierarchy process approach (AHP) are applied to rank the mentioned factors. The results of t-test show that the premium and supportive facilities, the amount of compensation, the quality of received services, the prestige of Bank-e-Keshavarzi, farmers’ commitment to Bank-e-Keshavarzi, and responding to complaints have affected the rice producers’ satisfaction of the crop insurance. Also, according to Friedman test and AHP technique, premium and supportive facilities and the amount of compensation have the highest priorities, while responding to complaints and the prestige of Bank-e-Keshavarzi have had the lowest ranks. Based on the study results, receiving premium by installments, paying the actual value of losses at the appropriate time, and improving service quality through modifications and diversification in services and human and nonhuman factors should be considered as major priorities to satisfy farmers. Moreover, policyholder participation in bank programs as well as bank accountability would play an important role in farmers' satisfaction of crop insurance.

In this study, we assessed the removing effect of chemical fertilizers subsidies on cropping pattern of agronomy in Shahre-Rey County. For this purpose, by simple random sampling method, 105 evaluation forms from Shahre-Rey County farmers between 2010 and 2011 were filled out, and Positive Mathematical Progamming model (PMP) with maximum entropy (ME) was used. According to cultivated area, farmers were divided into four homogenous groups, and the elimination effect of the chemical fertilizer subsidies through price changes in nitrate, potassium, and phosphate fertilizers was evaluated. The results indicated that the extent of planted areas in all crops was decreased in the first and second groups. In the third group, only the extent of planted areas of wheat and cauliflower was increased about 8.569% and 6.52%, respectively. Finally, in the fourth group, the extent of planted areas of barley was increased about 0.818%. Also, the rate of using inputs was decreased and the planned output of all groups (1, 2, 3 and 4) was declined 4.825%, 5.402%, 8.928%, and 1.512%, respectively.