Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2018 | Volume:26 | Issue:102 |Papers Count:12

The impact of climate variables on agricultural production in different regions is one of the climatic differences that affects the process of internal growth and development in the agricultural sector. In this study, with the analysis of provincial statistics during the period of 1991-2011, the role of climatic differences in the growth process of Iran agricultural sector was investigated using the integrated group average approach (PMG). The results indicated that climatic distinctions in different areas of Iran cause different levels of energy, labor and land usage and have a significant impact on agricultural growth process. Therefore, this study suggested to consider policies related to agricultural production factors such as energy pricing and labor wage determination according to the both climatic differences in all various regions of the country and the effects of the climate-related phenomena.

One of the main objectives of brands in the market is to preserve and develop market share that brand diversity can play significant role in this regard. Diversification in companies should be performed based on recognizing the consumers’ needs and increased social welfare of them. In this study, diversity, price, and preferred value of Kaleh and Pegah brands of cheese in Mashhad market were estimated using data of Naushad project and Pegah Milk Industry (including 425 food stores in 2014) and using seemingly unrelated regression system in the form of four scenarios. Then, changes in consumer surplus, and social welfare and profit per one unit increase in diversity of each brand have been calculated. The results showed that in the first scenario, increasing the the price of Kaleh brand compared to Pegah brand caused reduction in change of consumer surplus for Kaleh brand, increasing the profit of food stores and reducing the social welfare surplus. The second scenario showed that reducing the price of Kaleh brand compared to Pegah brand leads respectively to increase change in consumer surplus, reducing the profit changes for Kaleh brand and increased social welfare. In the third scenario, change in consumer surplus reduces per one unit increase in Pegah brand diversity. Also in third scenario, profit changes increases per one unit of increase in diversity of Pegah brand. In the fourth scenario, per one unit increase in the diversity of the Pegah brand leads to a slightly change in consumer surplus of the Pegah brand. In the fourth scenario, the change in profit per unit increase in the diversity of Pegah brands decreases and leads to a slight decline in social welfare. Based on the results of this study, it can be said that the time of diversification of Kaleh brand increases the social welfare, which, with an increase in the diversity of Kaleh brand, does not increase the price of Kaleh brand compared to Pegah brand.

Population growth and rising demand for urban services have led to an expansion of the urban area and a great deal of pressure on agricultural lands to change their use and have environmental impacts. In recent years, concerns have been raised regarding the environmental impacts of manufacturing activities. Hence, there should be fundamental principles in land resource management that can balance environmental values and economic added value. In this study, using collected data from 104 inhabitants of urban and rural areas of Siahkal County and using the choice experiment method, non-use values of agricultural land were estimated according to scenarios. The results of this study showed that respondents willing to pay more for orchards and paddy lands than the default lands, which is dryland. In addition, results show that respondents have more willingness to pay for orchards than paddy fields. On the base of the results of this study, mean willingness to pay for paddy fields and orchards are 28977. 99 and 42732. 53 million Rials, respectively.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of knowledge-based economy on value added of Iran’ s agricultural sector from 1989 to 2014. To investigate the long-term relationship between the value added of the agricultural sector and ICT index, R&D index, extension and education index, capital and labor variables, Johansen-Juselius Co-integration method and error correction model (ECM) were used. The results of long-term function estimation of the model show a positive and significant impact of ICT index, research and development index, and capital and labor variables on value added of the agricultural sector. The effect of agricultural extension and education index on value added of the agricultural sector was positive but it was not statistically significant. In addition, the results of error correction model show that almost 53% of short-term deviations of the agricultural sector value added from its long-run equilibrium are modified in a period. Hence, the increase in research and development credits in the budget of agricultural sector can be effective in growth of value added of this sector.

Considering the farmer’ s preferences as the main participants of agricultural futures markets affects the success of tradable contracts in these markets. According to the empirical evidences in Iran, one of the most important producers’ preferences about agricultural markets is their financial needs. In this context, the purpose of this study is determining the importance of the financial needs of farmers in the success or failure of futures contracts. The statistical population of this study is rice farmers of Sari County, which 272 farmers were selected through random sampling method as sample. In order to achieve the main purpose of this study, the effects of two variables of “ level of understanding of futures markets” and “ financing of farmers” as independent latent variables, along with the numbers of middle dependent latent variables on the “ level of acceptance of futures contracts” as the main dependent latent variable was investigated using a Covariance Structure Model framework. Based on the results, farmers financing has a significant and positive effect on the level of acceptance of futures contracts. So, it is necessary that future contracts are designed and localized in such a way that in addition to hedging the price risk of producers, their financial risk is also can be hedged.

The asymmetric price transmission can be indicative of market power. In this regard, this study, with the help of a hybrid model, simultaneously analyzed the transfer of prices between the sugar and sugar market and the market, despite the changing market power. For this purpose, seasonal data of required variables during the years 1995-2013 was used. Asymmetric price transmission can indicate market power exerted by production firms. Regarding the issue a mixture model has been applied to analysis the price transmission pattern between processing and retailer markets of sugar while market power is considered as well. For this purpose, seasonal data of required variables during the years 1995-2013 was used. In this study, retailer price of sugar was examined using two regimes which have high conformity with agricultural products that are characterized by mass supply in the harvesting season. Inverse supply elasticity of output was used as market power parameter. Regarding the regime 2 that is more likely to happen, marketing agents in the wholesale market are inclined to transmit increase of prices to retailer market more significantly than decrease of prices. Asymmetric price transmission and market power were confirmed in this regime. In the first regime, market power was higher and had the probability of about 30%, mostly dependent on abundance of supply in the seasons of processing sugar, which is an attempt to increase market power and to create a monopoly in the purchase of agricultural inputs.

Iran’ s government has followed subsidies reform since 2010. Due to the fact that a significant part of these subsides historically has belonged to wheat, flour and bread, this study aims to investigate on outcomes and consequences of subsidies reform in above mentioned sectors. To this end, 2-stage cluster sampling method among different populations of bread producers (576 observations) and consumers (1622 observations) plus flour producers(21 observations) is implemented in Tehran and Khorasan Razavi provinces as the dominant poles of consumption and production. Furthermore, this study covers subjects related to the fields of bread consumption, waste, flour and bread quality and production. Changes in variables have been verified by mean-comparison tests. Results indicate that more successful outcomes have been achieved with bread consumption variables than those of bread and flour production. Consequently, this fact is argued that stems from incomplete enforcement of obligations to producers induced by subsidies-reform law. To address these issues, modification of bread and flour prices is proposed.

Excessive withdrawal of groundwater resources in recent decades has led to many negative externalities that one of its consequences is decreased welfare of farmers. In the present study, to survey the effect of the declined groundwater level on the welfare of farmers, first, wheat production function was estimated using generalized quadratic function and then marginal production of each input, including water input, was calculated. Then, the welfare function caused by reduced water level was calculated by estimating extraction cost function. Finally, using the envelop theorem and differentiation of welfare function with respect to groundwater levels, welfare changes due to water level decline was measured. The results showed that for every one meter groundwater level decline due to excessive withdrawals, welfare of farmers reduces 124546820 Rials and the total decreased welfare caused by the Orzuiyeh plain reservoir deficit is 129 billion Rials which is considerable. In addition, reduction of welfare per cubic meter of water is equal to 209. 7 Rials. According to the results, reduced welfare of farmers is due to excessive consumption of groundwater resources which must be prevented by taking policies such as forced shutdown of motor pumps, reducing the acreage, determination of cropping pattern, culture of consumption, and increasing the farmer participation in the management of natural resources.

This article determine the monopoly power of 22 food industries among 136 manufacturing industries at 4 digit ISIC level, and also determine the position of food industry in terms of market power dispersion among 23 fields in industry at 2 digit ISIC level. The unstructured and parametric approach of Lu and Yu was used to estimate the monopoly power of industry. According to the results, the mark-up of 73 percent of food industries is more than 10 percent. Industrial production of bread and a variety of beverages are the largest monopoly power, while industries such as production, processing and preserving of meat and meat products; manufacture of vegetable and animal oils and fats; manufacture of dairy products; manufacture of grain mill products show a competitive behavior. On the whole, 87 percent of the Iranian industries have monopoly power and uncompetitive behavior. Meanwhile, the industries have the decreasing average of returns to scale and the position of food industry in terms of inequality rank of market power dispersion, is 12 among 23 industries with 2-digit level. Therefore, using the potential capacity of some industries such as flour production can be helpful, with liberalization the exports of their products while no subsidization is provided for the raw material. In order to increase the competitive nature of the other industries, a strategy can be; reducing and rationalizing the import tariffs with the aim of improving competition.

Commodity demand development such as milk and its processed are important nutrition strategies of government such as I. R. Iran government. For this, some of government health budgets and producer expenditures are allocated to milk consumption promotion by generic advertising. Accordingly, advertising expenditures are important component of production cost. Determination of optimal advertising budget in firms is basic question in accounting cost list. Accordingly, target of this study is determination of optimal generic advertising budget by using of multi stage marketing model and existence of market power in different stages. That is, the main target of this paper is determination of milk optimal generic advertising budget in farm level and processed milk in retail level under different scenarios of market power. Results indicate that, in average, the most optimal advertising intensity in farm level (share of advertising in fluid milk supply 3. 38142 percent) is related to condition that farm and retail market are competitive and monopoly, respectively. The least optimal advertising intensity (0. 00209 percent) is related to condition that farm and retail market are monopoly and competitive, respectively. Also, existence of market power condition in farm and retail levels on generic adverting intensity is negative. But increasing in market power in farm and retail levels has opposite effect on generic adverting intensity. That is, by increasing farm market power, optimal advertising intensity in retail level; will increase and by increasing retail market power, optimal advertising intensity in retail level; will decrease.