Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2008 | Volume:16 | Issue:3 (63)|Papers Count:7

The aims of this study are determining the input effects on risk and average of production, and to compare these effects with each other and to calculate the risk aversion parameter of pistachio producers in Zarand in 2004-2005. For calculating the input effects on risk and average of production, Just and Pope (1978) methods, are used when for studying reaction of producers into risk, Moscardi and De January (1997) methods, have been used.The results indicated that labor, acreage, mechanization and pesticides, had a positive effect on production risk, and except for labor, all effects were significant. Fertilizer, manure and water had significant negative effects on production risk. Also, except mechanization, all input had positive effects on production average, when except acreage, all were significant for other inputs in 1% level. Ofcourse, negative effect of mechanization was not significant. Final effective factors on risk aversion parameter were determined. Results also show that, ages had a positive effect and experience, acreage and annual income had negative effects on risk aversion parameter for producers.

The main purpose of this paper is to survey nutrition and vulnerability as well as food security status in Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ranking of South-Western Asian Countries (the Middle – East and Neighboring Countries) in vulnerability and food security indicators. Data and information have been collected from FAO, World Bank, ILO, World Health Organization, UNICEF and UNESCO documents, and web sites as well. The results show that the place of Iran among South-Western Asian Countries for examined indicators are: the 6th for dietary energy supply index, the 12th for food security and nutrition status composition indicator, the 14th for economic food access indicator, the 5th for agricultural indicator, the 15th for food availability indicator, the 10th for sanitation-cultural indicator, and the 9th for vulnerability total/composition indicator (when the 1st rank means the lowest vulnerable one).

This research aimed to specify and analyze factors affecting adoption of wheat insurance in Zanjan Province and to submit some suggestions for policy makers in order to secure production in this sector. In this relation, this research was carried out at Khodabande city in Zanjan province using cross sectional data collected from 43 wheat producers in the region. Data were gathered by interviews with the farmers and filling in pre-structured questionnaires in year 2003. Logit Model and ShazamWin 8 software were utilized for analyzing collected data.The results showed that farmers’ total land and their level of education are the most important factors affecting farmers’ willingness towards insurance adoption. While, factors such as age of farmer, having non-farm job, receiving facilities, participation in extension classes and farm diversification were not statistically significant did not influence farmers' demand for insurance. Therefore, it is recommended to policy makers and programmers to utilize from factors total lands and education of producers in order to increase their participation in crop insurance.

The development level of agriculture sector in different regions is not generally the same. We usually see heterogeneity among the parts of industry, agriculture and services of countries. Thus, it is necessary and inevitable to study the development trend economically among the provinces of our country.In this article, the development degree in agricultural part of Iran’s provinces in 1994 and 2004 is studied and the following question is answered: Is the agricultural duality among the provinces of Iran during the studied years decreased or increased? According to the results, the level of agricultural development is not changed considerably during the studied years but the inequality intensity coefficient is increased about 18.7%.

This study explores the efficiency of Fars broilers producers with the use of a number of suggested input & output in 2004. The 35 producers were studied when three of them were efficient in 2004. Data analysis reveals significant relationships between efficiency with production capacity and degree of automation. Furthermore, we can come to this that reference sets for every producer is non-efficient. By the way we can determine how much adjustment is needed for inputs to get a higher efficiency. This is very important in the competitive market.

In this study, using time series data from 1981 to 2004, the impact of uncoordinated policy making on unsustainable pistachio acreage expansion in Iran was analyzed. The results indicated that independent and uncoordinated policy making in macro economy, water resources and agriculture sectors, have reduced welfare gains and have caused unsustainable expansion of pistachio acreage in Iran. The results of simulation model showed that motivational policies for water resources protection, such as water tax, work successfully if and only if the discount rate is low and economy is stable. In other words, with high discount rate, it is better to use legal controlling tools. The results, also, showed that an increase in pistachio price, because of non oil export inducing policies in agricultural sector, will enhance welfare gains and establish sustainable development if and only if water resources protection policies are intensified simultaneously.Thus, policy making in one sector, ignoring the others, will decrease welfare gains and will expand pistachio acreage unsustainably. The current conditions in pistachio producing regions in Iran indicated that pistachio acreage was expanded unsustainably in the past. At the end of the study, a compromise programming model was introduced for determining optimal level of each policy in each sector.

Because of importance of agricultural sector in Iranian economic and linkages of this sector with other economic sectors, investigating intersect oral linkages has had an increasing attention. In this study, with dividing Iranian economy in four sectors (agriculture, industry, service and oil) the purpose has been studying interaction effects of economic sectors. Also some equations have been designed for investing in non-agricultural sector, non-oil export supply, import demand and rural-urban terms of trade. Data are collected from various official sources in the period of 1971-2003. Results from systemic regressed equations by 3SLS procedure showed that the industrial sector has had a positive effect on GDP growth of agricultural sector while oil and service sectors have had a negative effect on agricultural sector. Also, service sector has had a positive link with industry.