Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2015 | Volume:23 | Issue:90|Papers Count:11

As it has been confirmed by the international organizations responsible for water management, demand assessment is considered as the central core of processes for coping with crises and problems involved in this area as well as the prerequisite of sustainable planning and directing investment decisions. The present study aimed at driving demand functions and determining economic value for irrigation water in the production of major winter crops including wheat and barley and major summer crops including forage corn, grain corn and tomatoes in Seidan-Farough Plain, Marvdasht, Iran using profit maximization approach in 2010-2011. Derived demand functions for water confirmed a direct relationship between water demand and crop price, but an inverse relationship between water demand and water price as well as the price of other inputs. Own-price elasticities of water demand indicated that farmers’ response to price changes is different in water demand for winter crops and summer crops so that price policies, as a tool for optimal control of water use, are expected to be more successful for summer crops. Moreover, the estimated economic value of water in the production of summer crops is significantly higher than that of winter crops.

Sustainability of agriculture involves agriculture resources, environment, social-economic and rural social issues. Sustainability is a qualitative concept and don’t measured directly, so should be selected appropriate indexes which it could be evaluated the value of sustainability in agricultural systems. To evaluate the sustainability of agriculture in different counties of Iran, the relative advantage method was used. For this purpose, 5 indexes which included some indicators were studied for every county. These indexes were agriculture resources, agriculture development, environment, rural societies and education. In general, 60 indicators were considered to evaluate the sustainability of agriculture. Different counties were ranked for every indicator and value of sustainability was calculated for every index and finally the sustainability of agriculture was determinate for every province. The results showed that first rank under indexes of agriculture development and environment, agriculture resources and education indexes and rural society' s index were related to Fars, Khorasan Razavi and Mazandaran provinces, respectively. Under all of studied indexes, Ghom province had lowest rank compared with others. Based on all of 5 indexes, the highest agriculture sustainability was obtained in Fars and Khorasan Razavi province and the lowest was gained in Ghom province. After Ghom, provinces of Kohgiliue va Boir Ahmad, Boshehr, Ilam and Semnan had lowest sustainability of agriculture. In general, agriculture sustainability and advantage or disadvantage was determinate for every province.

Adoption of new tools for risk management by farmers is one of the issues facing policymakers. In this study, the affective factors on ratification sales contract of tomatoes product as one of management risk tools in the Mashhad County were surveyed. For this purpose, first use viewpoints of agricultural jihad experts to identify important affective variables of sale contract of tomato produce in Mashhad County. We collected information by questionnaire than 100selected farmers using by random sampling in 2012. Then by exploratory factor analysis is identified variables loaded in four factors and analysis their effects on sale contract of tomato produce. Result of exploratory factor analysis showed that are loaded variables in first factor consist of, provide needed technology to grow crops, provide promotional information required, to help improve product quality and to help provide inputs needed of farmers, with 22.12% have highest explanatory accepting reasons of sale contract of tomato produce. Also are loaded variables in four factors consisting of Convenient and easy access to market with 12.56% has least explanatory accepting reasons of sale contract of tomato produce to processor factories of tomato in Mashhad. Finally based on findings of this study, the targeted intervention of tomato processing factories in the Mashhad county to awareness of farmers about method of using the modern technologies, Composition and proper use of inputs, right way of doing agricultural works as well as help to farmers to prepare their required inputs have been suggested.

In this paper technical, allocative and economic efficiency of wheat, were compared during 2000-2009 in deferent provinces by using the stochastic technique (based on incidental Translog form). The results show that technical inefficiency of dry and irrigated wheat producer in Iranian provinces are 21 and 35 percent respectively. Dry and irrigated wheat producer allocative inefficiency in Iranian provinces are 23 and 51 percent respectively. Also, economic inefficiency of dry and irrigated wheat producer in Iranian provinces are 38 and 67 percent respectively. Furthermore, mean trend of dry and irrigated wheat efficiency is declined in 2000-2009. The result shows that the total of variety efficiency was declined in 2008 which has a direct relationship to land reduction in this year. Regarding the results, the irrigated wheat efficiency has a higher level than dry wheat efficiency.

The purpose of this study is the determining factors affecting economical sustainability in production of greenhouse products in Tehran province. The used research method is descriptive and correlation kind, which has been carried out in a survey way. The studied statistic population was 1787 people of greenhouse owners in Tehran province in 2011 and data were collected by interview and completing 306 questionnaires. The results of SEM and factor analysis indicated that the most important factors affecting the economical sustainability, respectively consist of: economic factors specially promoting export, social factors specially establishing local organization, farming factors specially reduction the use of chemical input, extension/education factors specially visit the sample farms, and policy making factors specially establishing production infrastructure.

The government intervenes in the wheat market because it is important to Iranian household food basket and its self-sufficiency issue. Such cases about government intervention in the market for producer support and increasing the incentive of production are guaranteed price policy. So, this study will be examined the effect of increasing the guaranteed price of wheat to its world price levels in 2013 on the regional market’s index of this product by using spatial equilibrium model. The required information and data to solve this model has been collected from the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad, Government Trading Corporation of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, Islamic Republic of Iran Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, Central Bank of Islamic Republic of Iran, Food and Agriculture Organization and the previous studies. This model has been estimated for 2010 as the latest year that was existed the required information about it. The results show that the increasing of wheat guaranteed price resulted in production growth in all provinces. The greatest percentage of increasing in this production happens in Ardabil, Khuzestan, South Khorasan, Fars and East Azerbaijan provinces. In average, the wheat production increase 54.32 percent in these provinces. With this policy applying, the amount of wheat consumption is reduced in all provinces. Because the wheat demand is inelastic in all the provinces so the amount of consumption reduction is negligible. The increasing of wheat guaranteed price increase the volume of wheat exported from the province and reduces the volume of wheat imported into the province in most of provinces. Finally, the results indicate that the effect of increasing the guaranteed price of wheat is composed the excess supply in market of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardebil, Ilam, Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan, Fars, Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Golestan, Lorestan, Markazi and Hamadan provinces.

Land is always considered as one of the main factors of agricultural production. The effects of land and its features on productivity could also be considered from this point of view. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the land distribution inequality on agricultural productivity. In order to investigate the main purpose, two steps were considered: Estimation of the production function with regards to land as an important factor on production and evaluation of changes in productivity if land distribution moves towards equality. All the results were based on panel data set from a selected number of Islamic countries. Results indicated that the land distribution had a significant influence on agricultural productivity, though this influence was not through decreasing returns to farm size. This influence was so that a decrease in the land distribution inequality coefficient would increase the productivity of labors among the selected countries by 12 percent.

Economic activity can be perceived as a process of transformation of materials and energy. Since matter and energy cannot be destroyed in their notion of absolute, therefore, they reemerge in the form of waste and eventually return to the environment; hence, the environmental degradations are quantifiable by the economic indicators and awareness of the social payments. In this study, by using the concept of marginal abatement cost of undesirable outputs, the input distance function was estimated to measuring the shadow price of the greenhouse and pollutants gases in the agricultural sector in the period of 1991-2011 as the required costs in this sector for the abatement activities of the pollutions. The results showed that in the case of protectionist activities in controlling pollutants and greenhouse gases in the agricultural sector of Iran, an average per ton of the pollutants per year, above the rate of 19 million RLS is needed to provide environmental subsidies. Finally, it was suggested that considering the role of each provinces in establishing the emissions abatement cost, distribution of environmental subsidies in the agricultural sector of the provinces be taken.

Resource usage by crops pattern optimization is one of appropriate methods for development in agricultural sector. In this study, the objectives of efficiency maximization, costs and cash investments minimization, minimizing water consumption, minimize chemical fertilizer and minimize the use of chemical pesticides are achieved by using the conventional linear programming model (single-objective), definitive goal programming and a fuzzy goal method. The constraints of problem are availability of machines, the workforce, and the availability of monthly water needs of livestock forage.Information required for this study was obtained using a two-stage cluster sampling of 277 by questionnaires from Mahidasht plain villages. The results of this study show that the conventional linear programming model to achieve the goals of the study but there is no definite and fuzzy goal programming model is possible. Comparison results show that the fuzzy model and fuzzy deterministic planning model that will better achieve the more of objectives, as a fuzzy goal programming model, return of the program will increase 1.72% and the current cost, water consumer, chemical fertilizers and pesticides will decline 5, 3.87, 23.65, 11.51 % respectively.

The export of non-oil commodities especially agricultural products has an important role in Iran’s economic activities, and its impact on economy and relative growth is undeniable. So, the expanding the agricultural export can provide the appropriate basis for Iran’s non-oil export in order to presence in the world market. Among the agricultural export of Iran, raisins have an important role. In this regard, this study has been done in order to investigate the trade dimensions of Iran’s raisins including export comparative advantage, export market structure, export target markets, trading map and global integration index over the period of 2000-2009. The results show that Iran has a high export comparative advantage over the mentioned period but after the 2004 the comparative advantage of this product has had a decreasing trend. Also, according to the target market ranking and global integration indices, Algeria, Panama, Lesotho, Saint Kitts and Nevis, are the best target markets of Iran’s raisins. The type of raisins export market structure is closed oligopoly and the result of trading map show that the Iran’s export market is declining. Finally, providing the basis for expanding the export and maintaining the Iran’s competitive position in the global market by revision the raisin's production, processing, marketing and trade policies is suggested.