Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2008 | Volume:15 | Issue:4 (60)|Papers Count:10

The process of production in the Agriculture sector is constantly exposed to diversified risks. The reason is that production in the Agriculture sector is severely tied up to climatic conditions and geographical locations. In addition, its exposure to pests and plant diseases further makes the sector vulnerable and distinguishes it from other production and business fields. Therefore insuring agricultural crops especially the strategic ones, such as wheat is a supportive policy on the part of the governments.Keeping this in mind, the present study, by taking advantage of the Logit model, has conducted a research work in Harsin County in Kermanshah Province. The data collected via this research work in the Iranian calendar year 1383-1384 has been classified through completion of 196 questionnaires.The results show that many variables such as education, areas under cultivation wheat, diversity production index, risk aversion degree and type of land ownership are five important and effective elements in adoption crop insurance in this region.

This paper is an outcome of a research aimed at recognizing the impact of various factors of formal and informal credit systems and their contributions in the process of agricultural input supply, agricultural products purchase and credit supply. Field studies and questionnaires sampling at rural areas of Khorasan Razavi and Western Azarbayjan provinces provided primary data of this study. Research methodology is based on binary econometrics estimation (Logit model).Research results indicate that informal credit supply sources with various productions are active in rural areas and their role and impacts in providing farmers needs and agricultural inputs are undeniable. The impact is as much as 28.8% and 72.2% for the contributions of formal and informal sectors in the purchase of agricultural products respectively. Moreover, 70% of the loans received by the farmers were provided through formal sector and 30% was provided by the informal sector (excluding family members and friends) In addition to the credit and liquidity needs of the farmers, informal sources also play role in providing agricultural machinery and tools in the form of renting these inputs or providing them at installment basis or advance purchase of agricultural products of the rural people. There are some advantages in informal sources such as easier accessibility and needing no security or guaranteed bond which are difficult for farmers to afford, however interest rate of informal sources are higher when compared to formal sources. Interest rate of the informal sources loan is lower than the interest rate charged for the advance purchase or rented agricultural machinery.Findings of this study indicate rural cooperatives enjoy some advantages compared to the banking system as well as informal sources. Results of the logit model estimation show that as the area of cultivated land increases, the probability of the use of informal credit sources will also increase. Also, as the age of the household head increases (since aged people are less risk taking) and as the non agricultural income of the household increases, the probability of the use of informal sources will decrease.

Certain supply of energy input in agricultural sector is crucial. This certain supply of energy in this sector is based on the precisely forecast of long-run energy demand in agricultural sector. In addition to the economy factors, forecasting of long -run energy demand in agricultural sector needs to consider the impact of improvement in production technology on energy consumption in this sector. The model for Energy Demand Evaluation and MEDEE-S software are used for estimating and analyzing long-run energy demand in agricultural sector and so for determining the effect of inexperienced technology improvements on energy demand in this sector. Explaining MEDEE-S methodology in simulation of energy demand in agricultural sector, specification of energy demand structure in agricultural sector, estimation of long-run energy demand in agricultural sector, and the effects of technology improvements on agriculture sector energy consumption are the contents of this paper.The results of this study show that the effect of technology improvements as a technological factor on the long-run energy demand in agricultural sector is not less than the effect of economic factors such as energy prices and agricultural sector value added.

The main objective of the present study is to determine the optimal cropping patterns in Kazeroun region located in Fars Province for farms of less than five hectares in 2004. In this study both the optimal allocation of water and the normative demand shape are under considerations. In order to obtain the optimal combination of competing crops, linear programming model (LP) was applied using LINDO software. In this study calibrated and classical optimal models were used to compare the relative profitability of optimal solutions.Using sensitive analysis, the normative demand schedule of water, a step-wise relationship between per unit price of water and level of water consumption were examined. Results showed that the farmers do not utilize optimally the existing limited resources. The results also showed that water is the main constrain of production in the region and the shadow price of the spring water is 523 Rials.

Poultry products are among most important food products that can improve food security to a great extend. However, it is very important to produce these products in an economically viable manner. In this research an attempt is made to measure Average Product (AP), Marginal Product (MP), Value of Marginal Product (VMP) and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of cooperative poultry units in Sistan region with the help of both secondary and primary data. Primary data which have been gathered through distributing questioners among producers were processed with the usage of EXCEL statistical software. With the intention of quantifying AP, MP a transcendental production function is estimated with the help of EVIEWS software and then from the production function MP and AP method is utilized. The results show that in order to increase production in this sector technological change is necessary.

In this study, optimum size of government for selected countries is investigated by using the analysis of panel and time series data. The Army curve was used for this purpose. The data were collected from the Word Bank database site as well as the Iranian Economic Information Center for these countries during 1970-2002. Based on the findings of Army curve panel estimation for 13 selected countries, 57 percent increase should happen in the government size in order to get the optimal size. While, time series estimations for individual countries imply an increase in the government size by approximately 15.02 percent on average. Optimal size of the Iranian government was determined to be 26.64 percent and considering the current government size, the government expenditure share in gross domestic product should be increased.The Army curve phenomena were not observed in agricultural sector based on the analysis of panel data. While, separate estimations for individual countries suggested expanding the government size by 14.9 percent on average. The optimal size of government in agricultural sector of Iran was determined to be 33.8 percent that is more than current government size.

The demand for food is estimated within a system framework. The seperability structure of the model is checked by a parametric test. The almost ideal demand system is estimated by seemingly unrelated regression in the static and dynamic version based on the time series data for 1974-2003 in Iran. The results of various specification and misspecification tests suggest that the static version performs poorly as compared with the dynamic version.The results of seperability structure rejected hypothesis saying consumers first allocate their income among different food groups and then within subgroup of meat. The compensated and un-compensated own-price elasticity is negative and the income elasticity is positive.