JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2017 | Volume:9 | Issue:2 (34)|Papers Count:12

Agricultural sector is the main water user in the country and it is the sector that suffers mostly during the period of drought. Since the vulnerability of farmers in drought periods is very high, this paper aims to investigate the vulnerability of farmers in Bakhtegan basin in Fars province and  to determine the vulnerability patterns of the studied areas in the context of drought risk management. A sample of 276 farmers was selected using a multi-stage random sampling. For this purpose, first, by using the Me-Bar and Valdez method, the vulnerability of farmers in five dimensions was determined. Then, based on the results and using the data mining technique, ten distinct and independent vulnerability patterns were extracted. The results showed that in the process of determining vulnerability patterns, infrastructure vulnerability had the highest and psychological vulnerability had the least importance in determining vulnerability patterns.   The findings of this study can help policy makers to reduce farmers' vulnerability to drought by improving the planning and application of appropriate risk management strategies.

Investment in the agricultural sector is important in providing food security of each country. Accordingly, it is necessary to identify affecting factors on investment in this sector. Because of existence of natural limitations and risks, investment in the sector has faced with problems. Inflation uncertainty is one of the factors that could influence on investment in the economy. The aim of current study is investigation of effect of inflation uncertainty on agricultural investment in Iran during 971-2010. For calculation of uncertainty index, Autoregressive conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) method and for estimation of model, Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) was used. The results of this study confirm that there is negative relationship between inflation uncertainty and agricultural investment. Considering the negative effects of inflation uncertainty in agriculture, policy of price adjustment is recommended to policy makers for stabilizing the economy and reduces uncertainty.

Paddy yields in Alamout region have been declined due to Chilo Suppressalis Walker pest. Slybyt scheme has been launched by government to overcome this problem.  Since the success of the project mainly depends on farmers, participation, this study aims modeling farmer participation to the rice Slybyt scheme in the region and its effects on the cropping pattern and farmers’ gross profit. To this end, Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) and the Maximum Entropy (ML) approach were used. Data collected from a sample of 136 farmers in 2012- 2013 by questionnaires using the Stratified Random Sampling method. The results showed that in both Eastern and Western part of the region, farmers' participation in the Slybyt scheme increases the rice yield relative to the base year while the rate of increase was different in relation to farm size. The result showed that the acreage of irrigated wheat, irrigated barley and beans decreased while the acreage of rice, grass pea, vetch and garlic increased. Also increase in farmers, gross margin from 4.78 to 13.09 percent relative to the base year was other consequence of farmers' participation in the Slybyt rice project.

In this study, the neural network demand System and the quadratic almost ideal demand system are used to estimate food demand in Sistan and Bluchestan province. For this purpose, micro data of urban household consumption in 2011 were used. The accuracy of two systems was estimated. The food items were classified into nine groups by COICOP to estimate demand. The NNDS results which are estimated using feed forward artificial and multilayer perceptron shows that MSE of all groups using this system has an equal MSE or even a smaller one comparing to QUAIDS. The results indicated that in most groups Engle curves for the NNDS was closer to the real curves. The expenditure elasticity of NNDS was almost equal to QUAIDS. The results of both systems showed that expenditure elasticity for the groups of bread-grains, milk products, vegetables-cereals, sugar-confection, flavoring-spices and different kind of beverages were less than one and groups of meat, fat-oils and fruit-nuts were more than one.

The aim of this study is investigate the effects of accumulation of internal and external agriculture research and development costs on rural income distribution in 1971-2011period. To achieve objectives of study, descriptive- analytical and econometric methods were used. Data gathered from various sources such as WDI, FAO, the Central Bank, Organization of Management and Planning, and Agricultural Ministry of Iran. The results indicated that internal agricultural research and development cost accumulation had negative impact rural income inequality while accumulation of external research and development expenditures did not have a significant impact on rural income inequality.

The purpose of this study is to identify factors influencing the production system sustainability by summer crop farmers. In this regard, the spatial Probit models and Bayesian approach was used. The data of 250 summer crop farmers in Khuzestan province based on cluster random sampling were collected in winter 2015. To calculate Bayesian coefficients the Gibbs sampling and Metropolis–Hastings algorithm were used. A Lagrange Multiplier test for spatial error dependence [LM(err)] and a Lagrange Multiplier test for spatial lag dependence [LM(lag)] to extract the appropriate model were used. According to the results, both models were statistically significant with 99% probability. Thus, both models could be used in interpreting the results. Results of the estimation of both spatial models, respectively, showed that the variables of income (0.812, 0.659), sustainability knowledge (0398, 0.465), crop yield (0.457, 0.765), participation in extension class (0.427, 0.486), educational level (0.562, 0.454), exploitation system (0.786, 0.576) and the spatial autoregressive coefficient (0.829, 0.739) had significant role on production system sustainability.

Due to importance of medicinal plants in Iran’s non-petroleum export, present study aims to determine comparative advantages and global export market structure of selected export commodities during 2000-2001 periods. To determine comparative advantages of exporting countries in international market, two indices of Revealed Comparative Advantages and Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage were applied. In order to determine global export market structure of medicinal plants, Herfindahl and Concentration ratio indices was used. Results revealed that among selected medicinal plants export countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, India, Egypt, Bulgaria, Morocco, Macedonia and Turkey had relatively higher comparative advantage .The results showed that comparative advantage is always fluctuating in studied time period. The results revealed that international market structure of medicinal plants composed of three types of monopolistic, open oligopoly and close oligopoly. The result of study showed that Iran’s export price was lower in contrast to countries where their share of global exports was small. For improvement of comparative advantage and increase the export price of Iranian plants diversification of export markets is recommended.

In this paper, the recreational value of the Jiroft Konar Sandal hill in Kerman was estimated. In addition to visitors' willingness-to-pay (WTP), by using contingent valuation methods, Double- Bounded and One- Half Bounded Dichotomous Choice methods were used and compared. To achieve this goal, required data were collected through filling up questionnaire and interview with a sample of 115 visitors in 2013. The results showed that the OOHB approach was better than DB approach because it had more denote significant explanatory variables and the absolute value of the logarithmic likelihood and maximum likelihood. The average willingness to pay using One- Half Bounded dichotomous choice method was 4500 Rials per visit. The result of using One-Half Bounded dichotomous choice method was a little different from willingness to pay.

The Objective of the present study is to examine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats concerned to Fars province agriculture and nonagricultural production cooperatives in providing goals of microfinance and job creation (employment). The data used for SWOT analysis comes from a survey of 40 cooperatives’ executive directors. Main and secondary factors were determined using Analytic Hierarchy Process. Internal and external factors evaluation matrix showed that cooperatives were in a moderate position in attaining the above mentioned goals. Pair-wise comparison revealed that opportunities with weight of 37 percent were the most important factors followed by weaknesses with weight of 31 percent. Strengths considered less important with weight of 9 percent and threats got weight of less than a quarter. Final scores obtained for secondary factors were used to determine strategy priorities and their contribution to strategy implementation. Based on the attractiveness score, an insignificant difference was found among strategies. Opportunities received the highest contribution to all strategies while the lowest contribution was assigned to strengths. It was also discovered that weaknesses were comparatively more important than threats. Among the opportunities’ “well-educated- experienced labor” and “government support for cooperatives and job creating activities” showed the highest contribution to strategies. The most significant factors of weaknesses and threats were “fluctuating and low output prices” and “lack of mechanism to accumulate cooperatives members’ saving”, respectively.

Due to the status of Iranian pistachios in the world market and importance of the product in foreign exchange earnings, the study of the structure of the world market for taking more efficient measures and policies is essential. In this study, most of the importers of Iranian pistachio including the UAE, Germany and China considered. According to statistics, the role of America in the Emirates and Germany markets is trimmed and Iran has a monopoly. But in the Chinese market because the presence of America, there is an oligopoly. Therefore, in this study, demand in China market in the form of competitive Bertrand, Cournot and Stackelberg using a system of simultaneous equations was estimated. The recommendations were based on the results. Needed data were collected from FAO and World Bank. Finally some recommendations are made to strengthen Iranian situation in export market.

This study to evaluate agricultural support policies in two forms budgetary and market supports from pistachio producers in the provinces of Iran during economic development Programs. In this study from total to ingredient procedure and data on five of the country’s economic development programs in order to evaluate distributional effects of support policies of pistachio producers in different provinces were used. The results of this study showed that the average budgetary supports in all provinces during economic development programs were positive and for fars, golestan and qom provinces have the highest value that indicate the more support and utilization of production subsidy inputs by mentioned provinces. Therefore the distribution and optimal allocation of budgetary supports in the country’s provinces can increase productivity of production subsidy inputs and thus it enhances the competitiveness power of pistachio producers on a global level. On the other hand, the average of market supports during this programs in all provinces is negative which indicates the lake of support in all the provinces of pistachio producers in the face of foreign competition and paying taxes were hidden by the pistachio producers.