Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2018 | Volume:26 | Issue:101 |Papers Count:11

Iran, as a developing country, is intentionally or unintentionally facing with the phenomenon of migration from rural to urban area, which is of great importance from the policy makers' point of view. It can play a very important role in the development of policies, therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of poverty on the migration from rural to urban area of Iran for the period of 1985 to 2013 using ARDL model. According to the results, the poverty, the ratio of urban to rural wage and the difference between rural and urban Gini coefficient have significant and positive impact on migration from rural to urban area. While the labor productivity in the agriculture sector have a statistically negative and significant impact on the migration from rural to urban area. Therefore, it is recommended that the government reduce the rural poverty and wage gap between rural and urban area.

Soil fertility in an optimal fertilizers use management system which is maximizing yield along with minimizing environmental damages is so critical. Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (K) and potassium (P) are the most important required nutrients for plant growth. Since the use of chemical fertilizers could create serious dangers for the environment and community health, the purpose of this study is determination of the optimal combination of fertilizers used for rice production in the Goharbaran of Sari using Goal Programming Model and the Game Theory. Required data for this study was collected by questionnaires and interviewing the 198 farmers during the 2014-2015 crop years. The results of this study showed that the amount of fertilizers use for Tarom and Shiroodi rice have not been optimal by representative farmers, so that on average, fertilizers use for Tarom and Shiroodi rice is more than optimal value, and it has increased soil pollution to chemical material. Following the presented optimal pattern in this study for fertilizer use, reducing soil contamination to chemicals, reduce the cost of fertilizers and increase the production per unit of fertilizer. Therefore, farmers can manage the use of chemical fertilizers concerning the results of the current and similar studies. Furthermore, agricultural organizations also should try in promoting the cultivation of organic products.

Green entrepreneurship is the process of creating transformation in business and infrastructure, so based on environmental protection and observance standards, sustainable investment and economic development will improve. This research is descriptive-survey and the study population consisted of 380 individuals from all agricultural experts, experts' standards organization and industrial research in Kermanshah and members of the association of organic producers. According to Morgan-Krejcie table, 181 individuals of them were selected. The results of factor analysis indicate that about 54.349 percent of the variance in green entrepreneurship development barriers in agriculture of Kermanshah County is explained in order of significance in four factors: infrastructure barriers, economic barriers, technical barriers and educational - extension barriers. From experts' point of view, infrastructure barriers are the most important obstacle to the development of green entrepreneurship. Therefore, by modifying the regulations and organizational structure and moving towards organizational structures with the participation of experts and agricultural experts, the field of entrepreneurship behaviors can be provided by farmers.

In recent years, trade liberalization has become one of the main objectives of governments and policymakers. In this regard, removing import tariffs is the most important step that can have significant effects on production, employment and welfare. Undoubtedly, eliminating tariffs will reduce domestic producers' power over the foreign producer, and this will affect employment in the entire economy. Accordingly, the present study examines the effects of removing agricultural sub-sectors tariffs on direct and indirect employment using the input-output table in 2011. To achieve the research goal, after import tariffs were calculated for agricultural sub-sectors, the effects of eliminating import tariffs were examined on agricultural sector and its sub-sectors including agriculture, horticulture, animals breeding, forestry and fishing on employment. Thus, due to the removal of agricultural import tariffs, will be created 3.7 percent and 2.6 percent reduction in direct employment and indirect employment, respectively. As a result, due to trade liberalization in the agricultural sector, indirect employment will decline more than direct and indirect employment. Based on indirect employment index, in scenarios eliminating import tariffs for agriculture and horticulture, animals breeding, forestry and fishing, decrease by 5.4, 0.26, 0.52 and 0.03 percent respectively. According to these results, it can be said that removing the tariff barriers of agricultural sub-sectors, in addition to reducing direct employment, also leads to a reduction of indirect employment and more effective on sectors that have strong links with this sub-sector. Therefore, it is recommended, the government pay attention to indirect effects on the employment sector to other sectors before any action to remove import tariff sectors.

Raisin is one of the crops which has a considerable share of yearly export. The main purpose of current study was to determine the most appropriate target market for the export of Iranian Raisin. In this regard, based on previous studies, a hierarchical structure designed with three criteria and, six sub-criteria for four target countries, UAE, Ukraine, Iraq and, Russia. The results showed that the market access criterion with a low weight of 0.5% is the most important in comparison to the cost and market size.In addition, Iraq with the final weight of 0.27 is in the first priority and the UAE, Ukraine and Russia were placed in the next priority respectively.

Sustainable food security has always been one of the main concerns of policy makers and wheat, as the most widely used product in Iran, has been contributing to food security. Also, achieving self-sufficiency and applying supportive policies has always been on the agenda, but this has only happened in the short run. Hence the development of strategies to achieve sustainable long-term self-sufficiency of this product is essential. The objective of this study was to evaluate the welfare impacts of sustainable self-sufficiency in a ten-year horizon (2014-2024), therefore, in this study, partial equilibrium approach and multi-market models have been used. In this model, domestic supply, demand, imports and inventories functions have been used, and the area under each curve is defined as surplus welfare. The results showed that the move to self-sufficiency, although in the early years leads to welfare losses, but then the welfare losses have been offset, and wheat market will converge towards a stable condition. Therefore, it is suggested that achieving the self-sufficiency is based on a long-term plan and increasing the guaranteed price should maintain the incentive of wheat production.

Trade liberalization entails benefits such as higher welfare and output.However, it may affect some variables like food security adversely. This study aims at simulating welfare and food security consequences of trade liberalization. Trade liberalization was investigated under two scenarios namely, the elimination of tariff as well as non-tariff barriers removal (free-trade) using a computable general equilibrium model based on the Iranian social account matrix. The results showed significant changes in output combination as it induces a reduction in output of agricultural sectors and agricultural-based industries. However, in the economy as a whole, it results in lower prices and higher GDP as well as higher consumption and welfare especially throughout higher income groups. It was also found that production and trade balance food security indices tend to decrease as trade barriers are removed and food items imports increases. While household food cover index shows higher food security, meaning that trade liberalization results in higher access to food but it induces more dependence on import-based food supply.

Food security is the key element of the mental and physical health of the community. So, accurate and comprehensive attention to this issue and recognize a multidimensional index to cover all aspects of food security is important to economic and political interdependence – in addition to economic aspects- for researchers and policymakers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to introduce and calculate a new index to estimate the food security level with GFSI index during 1980- 2013. Also, the food security situation during five years development programs descriptively and impact of price indexes and population on food security by ARDL model and Bound test were studied. The result showed that the food security fluctuates during the time. Especially food security enhances more during 1th and 4th five- year development plan.Also, the result showed the level of prices and population as negative factors on food security in short and long term.

Sustainable development of agricultural sector requires appropriate strategies based on the realities. Defining, measuring and analyzing the productivity indices of the strategic wheat product will help to understand the real differences in productivity in the provinces and make the suitable decisions for their economic development. In this paper, the partial productivity indices for measuring the productive efficiency of the sources of wheat production such as water, manpower, resources used in the land preparation stages, planting, and harvesting and total productivity of the production factors are defined. The annual productivity indices are measured for different provinces of Iran between 2006 and 2011. The multiplicity of productivity indicators for different provinces makes it difficult to analyze them. To reduce the number of indicators, the exploratory factor analysis approach is used and a productivity number is calculated for each province. Finally, the clustering approach is used for classifying the provinces based on their similarities in productivity. The results showed that Ardebil and Kermanshah provinces are similar based on partial manpower productivity index and total productivity factor. Mazandaran, Ilam and Hormozgan provinces have the highest water productivity.

The Irregular and unprincipled use of modern agricultural technologies lead to irreversible harm to natural resources and the environment. This study examines the factors affecting environmental sustainability in production of agricultural products. The research method in this study is quantitative and in term of controlling the variables is descriptive and correlation kind, which has been carried out in a survey way.The method of collecting data was a structured interview by using 351 questionnaires. The results of SEM and factor analysis indicated that the most important factors affecting environmental sustainability are: protective technologies (particularly crop rotation), economic and marketing (especially the production of healthy and marketable products), educational and promotional (in particular, training courses and workshops), policy and planning (especially supportive laws and regulations), and social and cultural (especially social capital of farmers).