Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2004 | Volume:12 | Issue:3 (47)|Papers Count:9

In this paper, we study the effects of monetary and fiscal policy on agricultural sector growth using a Structural Vector Analysis Regression (VAR), the reduced form of model. We determined the long-run variables vectors. Then, by using the Johansen co-integration method, for the years 1972-2002 three long-run vectors in which they related to aggregate supply and demand and equilibrium conditions in agricultural sector were estimated.Using the estimated long-run and short-run relationship, we analyzed the effects of monetary and fiscal policies on agricultural growth in that sector. The results show the expansionary (contractionary) fiscal policy in the short- run does not affect the agricultural growth rate, but in the long-run it has a positive (negative) effect. Also, the effect of expansionary (contractionary) monetary policy in the short-run does not affect the growth rate in agricultural sector but in the long-run it reduces (increases) the growth rate in that sector.

Since decrease in inflation has been one of the aims of economic policies and there has been a close relationship between money stock and inflation, in this paper the causality between money supply and prices was examined. The goals of this study were to examine causality between money supply and prices of agricultural products using the causality test of Granger and prediction of four macroeconomics variables. The proxy for money supply were (M1) and (M2). The proxy for retail sales price index of agricultural products consumption and wholesale price index of agricultural products were respectively (CPI) and (WPI). The data used in this study were collected from internet, PDS database and central bank publication. The results indicated that (WPI) and money supply have dual causality with each other, but money supply is the cause of (CPI).

Agriculture is a risky activity. There are a number of natural, social, economic and mandatory factors which create an uncertain environment for farmers. Governments design policies and programs for supporting farmers and agricultural producers.Revenue Insurance (RI) is a new program which deals with both price and yield risks. This paper has tried to review the theory of RI and then to compare RI with price and yield insurance programs.Using price and yield data for wheat, barley, chickpea, and onion in Fars, Kermanshah and East Azerbaijan provinces for 1983-2002, to test the possible application of RI, it is showed that onion in East Azerbaijan, chickpea in Kermanshah and wheat in Fars are the best products for being consider in RI program. The results also indicate that rainfed and irrigated onion, chickpea, wheat, and barley, are the most suitable products to apply RI program at national level.

Optimum use of renewable water resources is one of the economical goals of the governments. Sustainable development was considered as an active design process by the farmer that should focus on creating and maintaining adaptive capacities in order to tune the farm system to an everchanging environment. Because sustainability involves social, ecological and economic aspects, the farmer must be enabled to integrate soft and hard parameters in decision-making. The objective of the research described in this paper was to develop a model that helps decision makers to design a sustainable agricultural system. Mathematical programming (MP) has been a widely used tool for studying and analyzing agricultural systems. As a result of this study of water sustainable agriculture, we present lessons for future project development and policy formulation and reform. The results indicate that, with improving of irrigation efficiency, groundwater resources level will be increased.

The wheat has high nutritive materials and it is important to cover nutritious security for the people of our country .During the last years, wheat has dedicated itself the most cultivation area of farm product as well .It is one of strategic products for decision makers in agricultural sector in Iran .In this paper, effective factors in supplying wheat has been studied using Nerlove model and time series data related to 1984-2003 period. For this purpose, wheat supply took into function wheat price , wheat price and barley price with one lag , amount of annual rainfall , cultivation area of wheat , wheat supply with one lag and time trends. Results show that, although we shouldn’t ignore the effect of price factors, the wheat supply with one lag and amount of annual rainfall are the most important factors that affect the wheat supply. So, pricing policy is not the sufficient instrument for increasing of wheat supply.

Stable food is of subsidized commodities that is mainly distributed in order to protect the low-income groups. High importance of this commodity in consumers’ basket is the main reason of recognizing consumption pattern.In order to study the consumers’ behavior and to estimate elasticities of commodities, Deaton (1988) approach was applied. The used data set also contains the expenditure and physical amount of the above commodities and demographic characteristics, including family size and education level of family head. This data was obtained through rural and urban families from Khorasan, Mazandaran, East Azerbaijan, Hormozgan, and Charmahal and Bakhtiary provinces, participated in annual household survey of 2001.The results indicate that selected commodities are consumed as a complementary set. Consumers, also response to rice price increment strongly rather than the other commodities. Comparing the urban and rural consumption patterns also show that rice is more important in urban region than in rural. In the case of bread a reverse order is observed.The income elasticity coefficients also revealed a high tendency of rural consumers to increase the amount of consumption compared to urban consumers. Comparing the quality elasticities coefficients of rural and urban consumers indicate a high sensitivity of rural consumers rather than urban to changes in selected commodities quality.

Fars province is one of the main agricultural poles in Iran. It would be a main center of production and export of agricultural crops, if a suitable policy and planned investment be used in the agricultural sector. A delicate attention to the comparative advantage of field crops is an important aspect of economic planning. In the current research comparative advantage and problems of the oilseed crops production such as rapeseed, sunflower, safflower and sesame were studied in 2002-2003.To obtain the objectives of the research, two groups of indices were used. The first one included Net Social Profitability (NSP), Domestic Resources Cost (DRC) and Social Cost- Benefit (SCB) ratio. Absolute and relative power purchasing parity (ppp) price were used to determine the mentioned indices. The second one included Efficiency Advantage Index (EFI), Scale Advantage Index (SCI) and Aggregate Advantage Index (AAI).Based on the first group of indices and also absolute and relative ppp, rapeseed, sunflower and sesame had comparative advantage in production when Safflower had none.Based on the EAI index, rapeseed had comparative advantage in yield, but the other oilseed crops had no comparative advantage in yield. SAI was more than one for sunflower and sesame. It shows that there is more concentration for sunflower and sesame than other oilseed crops in Fars province in comparison to the whole country.AAI was also more than one only in sunflower. It means that sunflower had a more comparative advantage in the region than in the national average, but it was less for other oilseed crops.