JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS RESEARCH
Year:2013 | Volume:5 | Issue:3 (19)|Papers Count:12

This article aims to determine the effects of microfinance on level of agricultural development in rural areas of West Azerbaijan for years from 2001 to 2009.To achieve this objective, 48 indicators were defined and measured by using factor analysis and numerical taxonomy methods. Townships were ranked in terms of degree of development of agricultural sector. The effect of agricultural microfinance program on agricultural development was measured using panel data model. The results showed that the level of agricultural development in various regions of West Azerbaijan province was declined during the period under study. The results also indicated that the effect of Agricultural Bank microfinance program on agricultural development was positive and significant. On this basis, expansion of the program was recommended.

Paying attention to the relative stability and forecasting prices could play an important role in controlling the instability of prices and ultimately reduce market risk. Comparison of different methods is important in the forecasting issues. In this study wholesale and retail prices (weekly prices) of Rainbow Trout Fish were forecasted and compared with ARMA and Artificial Neural Network methods. Feed-forward network that is one of back propagation networks was used. The data are from first week of March 2009 to last week of September 2011. Series were stationary at levels based on data stationary test (Dicky-Fuller augmented). Results showed that ARMA compared with artificial neural network had less error based on four evaluation criteria and therefore, it was superior in forecasting the price of Rainbow Trout Fish. In ANN model 80% of data for training network and 20% for testing network were used. The results of accuracy equality test of two methods (MGN) showed that ARMA method was also better than the neural network method in forecasting retail and wholesale prices.

Economic evaluation of ground water resources is the first step toward optimum operation of these resources. Over pumping of ground water, especially in arid and semiarid areas, has had negative effects on environment. This is because of low price of water in relation to its real value. In this study, using a sample of 110 fanners, number of displacement of Irrigation wells and its costs due to over using of groundwater in Rafsanjan plain was investigated. Analysis and regression methods were used in this regard. The results showed that average well displacement was 2.18 times. The cost of displacement was 750 million Rials. There was a direct relationship between over pumping of ground water and loss of quality. It was concluded to estimate real social costs and benefits to reduce the negative effects of over pumping.

Government III the rural housing support program has targeted low- income groups. In this program, determining targeted groups based on income criteria faces some criticism. This study aims to compare income poverty approach with multidimensional housing poverty approach in this program. In income approach total expenditure - income ratio while in multidimensional housing poverty approach security, density, having and access to sewage system dimensions were considered. Needed data extracted from 19707 Iranian rural households in 2010. The results indicated that housing poverty prevails on the vast majority of rural households and income poverty encompasses 57 percent. The results showed that about two-fifths of households were deprived based on multidimensional approach. Income poverty gap was 1.8. The results showed that applying income poverty approach to assess target groups in the program excludes 42.9 percent of rural households experiencing housing poverty. Accordingly, shifting towards multi-dimensional housing poverty approach in the program is recommended.

Coping strategy Index (CSI) is one of the indices to measure food security. This index is one of the simplest and prevalent indices of measuring food security in any society which correlate easily with other indices of food security. Coping strategy indices are classified into two groups of food and non food coping strategies. I n this paper by using non food coping strategies, food security situation of rural households of Gorgan County was measured. A sample of 267 households selected with application of stratified random sampling method from five rural district of County. Results of K mean cluster analysis showed that rural households of Gorgan were classified into three groups of low, moderate and severely food insecure. Results of Logit model indicated that variables such as annual income, employment situation of household head, chronic illness of one of household members, education level of spouse, household size, education level of household head, and access to credit had significant effect on the level of nonfood coping strategy.

This study attempts to forecast the export of Iran's date for the period of 2010-2016, using the econometric methods, ARMA, GARCH, and the methods of computational intelligence, artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms. The data from 1967-2009 were used. The data from 1967-2005 were used for modeling and the four last years, were used to examine forecast ability. Results indicated that the neural network has the lowest Forecast error comparing other methods followed by Genetic Algorithm .According to the superiority of neural networks in forecasting the Iran's date export, forecasts made by this, shows the decreasing- increasing trend in the exports of lran’s date.

Non-oil exports are among important variables that are influenced by exchange rate fluctuations. Since exchange rate fluctuating during last three decades in Iran, the effect of exchange rate volatility on non-oil exports was studied. To achieve this objective, exchange rate uncertainty estimated by generalized auto-regressive conditional heteroscedasticity model (GARCH). Then, for estimating the relationship between exchange rate uncertainty and exports for 1980-2010 period, vector error correction model (VECM) and vector regression (V AR) were used. The results showed that exchange rate uncertainty had a significant negative effect on non-oil exports both in short and long terms with coefficients of 1.06 and 7.29 respectively.

Iran is located in arid and semi-arid region due to constantly faced with water shortage. Also, the indiscriminate withdrawal of groundwater in recent years, leading to a decrease in the water level and its stability is jeopardized. Varamin Plain faced with instability in groundwater balance. In this paper, By Using deterministic dynamic programming, assessment of water pricing policy on improving plain aquifer water balance and optimal cropping pattern has been studied in both modern and traditional modes. Statistics has been gathered from IWRM and simple classification method questionnaire. The study period was 10 years and the discount rate is 20 percent. The results showed that an increase in price leads to a decrease in the extraction of groundwater and improve groundwater balance. Modern farmers because they are less sensitive to price increases, their net income will be less change. Now, according to the most of irrigated agriculture in the region is traditional, It is recommended that water pricing associated with complementary policies, such as subsidies to improve the efficiency of irrigation systems.

Rapid growth, feed efficiency and resistance increase against the diseases is considered the most important goals of the aquaculture industry and the use of probiotics in the diet of various animals is increasing. The study aimed to investigate the effect of probiotic Bactocell on the growth of income resulted on farming rainbow trout and to determine the optimal diet was conducted. In the study, 8,000 pieces of rainbow trout divided into two groups: the control group (no treatment) and the experimental group treated with probiotic Bactocel Pediococcus acidilactituma that 2000 pieces were set in the four pools and the experimental group treated with Bactocell on a 3 meals daily with food formula based on extruded food by bactocell and then in months 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 after treatment, biornetric testing was performed and the results by using independent T- test were analyzed. The data obtained from the study showed that Bactocel caused to weight gain and increase fish growth rates, especially compared to the control group. According to the results of the study, Bactocell probably by increasing the growth rate and the weight of rainbow trout caused to reduce the costs and to increase income.

The objective of this study is to analysis impact of increase in production costs on export and market power of Iran in pistachio world market. To achieve this objective a system of equations including domestic supply and demand, import demand and export price as well as data set of 1980- 2009 was applied. The results showed an elastic domestic supply and import demand with respect to price while domestic demand was found inelastic. It was also found that 1.39 percent increase in interest rate as representative of production costs induces a reduction of 0.56 and 0.3 percent in export and the Iranian market power, respectively. The findings of welfare analysis also indicated that producers, consumers as well as exporters as a whole will suffer from annual loss of 158 billion Rilas as production costs increases by 1.39 percent of which the most accounts for producers.