JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2010 | Volume:2 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

Stringent Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary standards (SPS) have proliferated in the aftermath of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture (URAA). According to WTO rules, countries are allowed to adapt regulations under the SPS in order to protect human, animal and plant health as well as environment, wildlife and human safety. These standards are currently becoming a major stumbling block in agricultural trade for developing countries. Limited by inadequate resources and expertise, among other things, these countries also have poor participation rate in discussions related to SPS that impedes the representation of their interests and concerns in setting international standards for agricultural products. This paper estimates the trade effect of SPS regulations on the export of Shrimp in Iran. Our results suggest that these measures have a negative impact on the export of Shrimp from Iran. The demand for agricultural products is increasingly focusing on quality, packaging, labeling, and standards of products. Therefore, to increase shrimp export considering such measures are recommended.

The global financial crisis, started in 2008, has affected many economies and it has also caused a significant drop in global growth during past years. As time went on, various sectors has been affected due to decrease in demand and prices. Using CGE model, this paper investigates the effects of global agricultural price decrease on agricultural trade balance of Iran. The results showed that decrease in prices of agricultural goods has had a negative effect on trade balance of all agricultural products except three products, namely, wheat, industrial crops and wood products. In brief, the decline of global agricultural prices deteriorated the agricultural sector trade balance mainly due drop in export of horticultural products. 

Band village is located at Orumieh region in West Azerbaijan province is one of the important tourism and promenade zone in Iran. The aim of this paper is to estimate the Outdoor Recreation value of Band village with the use of contingent valuation method. To determine effective variables affecting willingness to pay of individuals, Logit model estimated with the use of maximum likelihood approach. Needed data were obtained through filling up questionnaires and interviewing with 140 individuals who visited the mentioned village. Results revealed that 75 percents of respondents were ready to pay for visiting the village. Also, results showed that factors affecting willingness to pay included education, revenue, gender, family size, and satisfaction degree of visitors. Mean Willingness to pay for each visitor per year was 6250 Rls. and annual outdoor recreation value of the village was amounted to 500 million Rls.

Agriculture is a risky business and there are various natural and economical risks which collectively cause large fluctuation in income.  In this paper the effects of production factors especially agro biodiversity on risk and average product of Mashhads wheat producers were studied. For this purpose, utilized generalized production function was used.  Needed information was collected by filling up 102 questionnaires from wheat producers. Results showed that there   was a positive relationship between risk and cultivated area, water, organic, phosphorous, potassium fertilizers, labor, and machinery, but only effects of bestial fertilizer, cultivated area, machinery and water were significant. Finally some recommendations are made to improve situation.

The major part of the subsidy in Iran is general and not targeted and it is believed to be ineffective and costly. In recent years, the government has taken steps toward reforming food subsidy. The aim of this study was to investigate impacts of Iranian food subsidy reform policies on production and share of production factors using Computable General Equilibrium Model. (CGE). The results showed that cash food subsidy would increase production in non-agriculture sector. Cash and food stamps subsidies would reduce share of labor income that cause production in various sectors to reduce. Also targeting and non-targeting food subsidies cause a slight increase in share of capital income. It is suggested that in implementing subsidy reform their effects on macroeconomic variables should be considered. Finally, targeted food subsidy programs were recommended because they had least negative effects on production and would reduce government expenditure substantially.

This study aims to find effective indices for optimization of subsidies to producers and consumers of selected agricultural products. To achieve this objective multiple attribute decision making models and viewpoints of experts were used. Selected consumer products were wheat, meat, rice, sugar and loaf sugar, oil and milk and selected inputs were chemical fertilizer, pesticides, medicine, credit, machinery, insurance, and energy. As there were uncertainties, in experimental and verbal judgments usually, interval logic used to overcome this problem.  Therefore, in this study Interval Analytic Hierarchy Process (IAHP) was used. The results of study showed that prevailing division of subsidies between consumers and producer was not optimal and the optimum shares of producer and consumer subsidy should be 86.56% and 13.44%, respectively which means 59.61 percent increase of subsidy to producers in agricultural sector.  

The objective of this study was to investigate the impacts of government expenditure on value added of agricultural and industrial sectors. To achieve the objective, Vector Autoregressive approach, causality analysis and Impulse Response Function analysis were used. The data collected from different sources including Iranian Statistical Center and Central Bank. Results of the study showed that causality is from government expenditure to agriculture value added, indicating positive impact of government expenditure on agricultural value added in the short run. It was also found that in short run government expenditure affects value added, export and investment of the industrial sector positively and significantly. Given the positive impact of the government expenditure on investment in agriculture, in both short and long-run, it is concluded that government expenditure in infrastructures results in improved transportation system which in turn, encourage more investment in agricultural sector. 

Trade liberalization affects various economic variables and sectors especially employment in developing countries. Agricultural sector has a considerable share in total employment in Iran. Therefore, identifying factors affecting employment in agricultural sector seems to be a necessity. With respect to the importance of this issue, present study has investigated the effect of trade liberalization on the Iranian agricultural employment. Hence, labor demand function in agricultural sector was estimated for the period of 1971-2007. Using Johanson-Joselius and Error-Correction models, the long term and short term relations among the variables were estimated. Based on these findings, trade liberalization has had a negative impact on the employment of Iranian agricultural sector both in log and short term. On this basis, policymakers should minimize negative effects of trade liberalization on the employment of Iranian agricultural sector through development of new industries in rural areas.

The main objective of this paper is to study farmer's situation encountering uncertainty. The data were analyzed with multiple criteria programming and TOPSIS method. The results showed that about 74.6% farmers and 67.76% of cultivation areas in Khorasan Razavi province were not in suitable situation encountering uncertainty. Only 2.33% of farmers were in suitable situation. Finally, for improvement of farmers encountering uncertainty, diversifying farming enterprises such as development of ranching, using appropriate agricultural machinery and increase group work through rural cooperatives were recommended.

In this study technical efficiency of broiler producers was measured in Southern Khorasan using data evolvement analysis. To do so, two stage sampling method was used. The sample size was 186. The data was collected through filling up questionnaires and then analyzed by DEAP, SPSS and e-views. The results showed that assuming the constant and variable returns to scale the average of efficiencies were 0.9 and 0.93 respectively. The results indicated that experience, educational level, membership in cooperative and credit had positive effects on efficiency. Finally some recommendations are made to improve the situation.