JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2015 | Volume:7 | Issue:1 (25)|Papers Count:15

Pistachio plays a great role in non-oil export in Iran. In order to assess sustainability index (SI) of pistachio, a study was conducted in the Kerman province. Sustainability indices included social, economic indices, fertilizer and chemicals, irrigation water, diversity of agricultural systems and weed management. Shahre Babak and Rafsanjan townships were selected. A sample of 160 pistachio producers selected and interviewed. Sustainability index calculated using Principle Components Analysis. Findings of the study showed that half of pistachio orchards were not considered sustainable. The stepwise regression analysis indicated that age, farming experience, farmer’s education, organic fertilizer, animal manure, pistacho yield; mechanical weed control and value of water had positive effect on stability while application of chemical fertilizers did not add to the prediction ability of SI. Farmers, education and amount of water had negative impact on sustainability.

At the last point of The Big Sefidrud basin, Ghezelozan River changes the name to the Sefidrud River after combining with Shahrud River. This river provides 80 percent of adjusted irrigation water in the province. In recent years, neglecting the total water resource of the Ghezelozan-Sefidrud basin several adjust and water storage facilities in upstream provinces had been constituted. The consequences of the mentioned strategy are inflow reduction and water resource management crisis in the Guilan province. Present study, provide comprehensive vision of Sefidrud river inflow reduction on different consumption of this basin under different scenarios using Sefidrud River basin Hydrologic-Economic integrated model. Hence, extend sets of hydrologic and economic data of Sefidrud river basin include inflows, surface flows, return flows, yields, revenues and production costs of agriculture entrepreneurs are considered in modeling. Results of integrated model of the Sefidrud river basin revealed that on the average total forgone economic benefits in different use of the Sefidrud river basin per a cubic meter of the Ghezelozan-Sefidrud basin inflow reduction equals 1138 Rials. Also, under investigated scenarios, the average forgone economic benefits in agricultural consumption of Sefidrud River basin per cubic meter of the Ghezelozan-Sefidrud basin inflow reduction equals 1100 Riasl. Revising the approach of technical-economic evaluation for upstream water development projects and considering integrated manner for decision-making is an inevitable necessity for this basin.

As water scarcity is enhancing in Kerman province, some of pistachio producers transferred their capital to other provinces in order to produce pistachio. In this study, using analysis of variance method, socio-economic effects of investment in new places by Kerman’s pistachio producers was investigated. A sample of 206 farmers was selected, using stratified random sampling method. The results showed that those farmers who have not invested in other provinces had more willingness to protect water resources in their own. In other words, farmers who transfer to new places have less incentive to protect water resources in their own native place. The results also showed that the farmers who invest without permanent residence, have less incentive to protect water resources in new places. In other words, investment in new places shold be done by farmers who are permanent resident in new places or government must increase control water pumping in both old and new places. If not, water degradation in all pistachio producing areas will increase.

The planning and investing in various sectors, especially agriculture is required precise knowledge of the regional climate, How the drought phenomenon has been in the past, present and would be in the future in the region. The objective of this study is forecasting drought in city of Bojnourd for optimal management of water resources and its effects on agricultural production. Needed data for drought prediction obtained from synoptic meteorology stations and Bojnourd Agricultural Organization. To determine drought periods, the SPI drought index was used. Effects of drought on production and farmers, income were determined. The results showed that the wettest and driest years were 1990-1991 and 1987-1988 years respectively. During the period, the region faced with 10 wet and 11 dry years. The most severe drought happened in the winter of 1999 with the cumulative SPI of -2.85, the lowest drought was in the fall of 2007 with -0.54 cumulative SPI.

For many years, Iran has traditionally been the largest pistachio producer and exporter in the world. In addition, pistachio is considered as one of the important sources of foreign exchange earnings and it has important role in reducing dependence of the public budget on oil revenues. Given the importance of pistachio in the Iran’s agricultural economy, it is essential to identify the factors that aaffects pistachio exports. The main purpose of present paper is to estimate the export demand function for Iranian pistachio. Using a panel of seven destination markets (including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and Switzerland) over the period 1992–2012 and controlling for the endogeneity of the explanatory variables, error component two stage least squares method is used to estimate export demand function. According to the results, all estimated coefficients are significantly different from zero at the five percent level and have the theoretically expected signs. The results show that long-run elasticity of demand for Iran’s pistachio exports with respect to relative prices and real exchange rate changes are considerably greater (in absolute terms) than their corresponding short-run elasticity. The results also suggest that the demand for Iran’s pistachio exports is inelastic with respect to real foreign income in both short- and long-run. Thus, with respect to demand conditions in destination markets, it is necessary to reduce marginal cost of Iranian pistachio producers by elaboration and implementation supportive policies.

The aim of this study is to assess impact of climate change on agriculture sector, production of the other sectors and national production in Iranian economy. To this end, farm production function considering climate factors (temperature and precipitation) estimated using the ARDL (Auto Regressive Distributed Lag) approach. Then, Social Accounting Matrix with sector supply limitation analysis framework was applied to calculate production impact on the other sectors. For this purpose the adjusted demand side model, in form of mixed model of SAM on the base of 2006 SAM for Iran at the national level is used. The results indicated that agriculture production decreased by -5.37percent, construction by -2.27percent and services by -1.64 percent. The result also showed that decreases in the national production and income of production factors due to this shock would be -9.5 and -25.54 percent respectively. Decrease in the production of agriculture sector affected low-deciles of rural and high-deciles of urban households more than other income groups.

Addressing the productivity issue in wheat production as a staple food in the country is important. In this study total factor productivity change is investigated in the three Northern provinces and compared to country mean in period of 2000-2010. The results of this study showed that in Golestan province, the total factor productivity change is under the influence of technological change and in Mazandaran and Gilan province, the total productivity change is under the influence of technical efficiency. Changes in TFP for the whole country have large fluctuations. These changes are due to changes in technical efficiency and technological change. To increase total factor productivity, better use of production inputs, especially, agricultural machinery, and extending loans to farmers are recommended.

This paper aims to determine the short and long-term changes in exchange rate uncertainty on exports of Iranian date during the period of 1980-2011. To calculate the exchange rate uncertainty generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) was used. Then, to examine the relationship between exchange rate uncertainty and date export, the Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) was applied. The results of this study indicate that; exchange rate uncertainty has significant negative effect on date exports in the short and long-term. Also, income of importing countries and domestic production has positive effects on exports of date. But export price of date has negative impact on the exports of date. Thus, pursuing policies to stabilize foreign exchange market could cause to increase date export.

This paper analyses the process of convergence across the provinces of Iran. To derive evidence of convergence in provinces of Iran we apply the traditional β-convergence techniques as derived from the neoclassical growth theories) Solow methods. (In order to do so, a sample of 28 Iranian provinces is considered for the 2001-2011 period. Accordingly, under this situation, two well-known convergence model σ-convergence and beta convergence(including absolute β-convergence and β conditional convergence) were tested over this period .The main findings indicate that: (a) there is a convergence among real per capita GVA in Iran provinces, (b) government policies affect the regional growth of real per capita GVA’s positively. (c) Variables such as the number of employees in agricultural sector, public spending, banking facilities for agricultural sector and taxes have positive and statistically significant impacts on growth.

Under recent subsidies law, subsidies which are paid to agricultural products have been changed. These changes have affected on some variables such as agricultural total factor productivity. This paper aims to determine the effect of subsides on agricultural sector with emphasis on farming subsector. Malmquist index is used to calculate total factor productivity. In addition, Hoderick Prescott Filter is used to determine productivity shocks. The results show that subsidies can reduce the negative productivity shocks in the agricultural sector.