Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2007 | Volume:15 | Issue:58 (SPECIAL EDITION AGRICULTURAL POLICIES)|Papers Count:11

Olive is one of the most important products, in the world. In this study, we investigate socio-economic and personal factors that affect olive adoption innovation such as: age, education, experiences, children below fourteen, income, etc. We used data of 1379-1380 and a sampling method. The research sampling was entirely random and stochastic: 120 farmers. Logit models are used to investigate essential factors. Since the dependent variable is qualitative, the independent variables are studied when categorized into three groups: personal variables such as: age, education and extension, and social variables such as: relationship to extension, studies on olive and technology, and lastly the economic factors such as: Income, employment, loan, risk and so on.Results show that variables including education, children above 14 years old, experiences, land, knowledge about olive, saving and income affect olive adoption innovation at 10 percentage significance Level.

Agricultural price policy can be considered as a tool to improve motivations in production. This paper evaluates the effects of price support plans of sugar beet on returns of labor and land in Khorasan province by using four methods: price support, product control, acreage control and price support with acreage restrictions. The present study has used Floyd model within the years 1358–79 to achieve the aims of the study. Results showed that the use of price support policy without acreage restrictions could be a proper tool for improving motivations in sugar beet production.

In respect to, economic and social role of raisins and grapes in national economy, abilities of the country for quantitative and qualitative advancing of this group, and world competitions in agricultural products market and high potential of raisins for exporting, the production and export comparative advantage of raisins have been studied. Time-series data 1961-2001 was used for surveying comparative advantage of export and for production comparative advantage; data was collected through survey research in Khorasan province. Revealed comparative advantage index in export indicates the existence of a comparative advantage. Also production comparative advantage indices of raisins were calculated based on policy analysis matrix. Results represent the existence of comparative advantage in raisins production in this region as well. The government has given direct and indirect subsidies for inputs to producers, although in all government policies and domestic market conditions based on Effectives Protection Coefficient have been disadvantageous for producers.

The purposes of this study were to determine the value of marginal product of irrigation water, to determine the cost of irrigation water, to estimate cost of production per hectare for different groups, to determine the price elasticity of water demand and determine the water price by Gardner method.This study is carried out in Ghazvin plain in 1995.The irrigation area under Taleghan dam was divided into five homogenous regions, on the basis of the providing cost for water and the length of the water canal. Then, the required data were obtained from 127 farmers who were selected from 24 villages of Ghazvin plain by sampling method. In this study, water demand function, the values of marginal production were estimated by linear programming, Econometric and engineering economic methods. Results showed that:Price elasticity was less than one and demand for water relative to its price tends to be inelastic. The value of marginal production of water was more than the price received by authorities. Average price of irrigation water is estimated about 65 rials per (m3) by Gardner method. The value of marginal product of water for farmers groups (<10ha) in five regions estimated 65,148,190,230 and 102 rials while for farmers groups (>10 ha) was 208, 113, 77, 69 and 120 rials, respectively.

Capital shortage is one of the most important restricting factors for activities and innovations in agriculture. The insufficiency in deprived areas such as Sistan and Baloochestan is more intense. Therefore, financial contribution to these farmers is necessary. In this study, effective factors on Sistan credit demand have been investigated by interviewing with 120 farmers.The results showed that land and labor force are plenty but, capital is scarce. Besides, results showed that credit demand quantity has a direct relationship with product prices. For one percent increase in product price, demand for credit increases about 1.859 percent, but increase in interest rate has a little effect on credit demand and the ratio of demand elasticity to interest rate is only about 0.18 percent.

With regard to natural and economic situation of Iran, producing agricultural products is one of the most perilous jobs in this country. Since most of the agricultural producers have got a limited financial potentiality in their occupation and use all they have in the production process, sometimes a little loss may turns out to be so huge to them so that they are not able to follow up their job any more. Agricultural commodity insurance can be a solution here to make the job more secure and the bed more appropriate and the capital more attracted. In this study the effective factors in developing the insurance of strategic agricultural commodities in Khodabandeh are investigated to make the efficiencies of the insurance services more.

The relationship between agricultural extension & research is one of the most important topics in the literature of agricultural extension & development. It seems that extension experts have attended this issue more than agricultural research specialists. Different studies show that there are some obstacles which disturb a desirable linkage between two services. Of the most important difficulties we must list the followings: lack of efficient balance between agricultural research from one side and agricultural extension & education from the other side. Extension organizations do not have initiative to establish linkage with research departments. Also lack of enough number of experts in extension units due to the cultural gap between the researcher and the extension expert are other problems lied here. In addition to these, the most important mechanisms to establish linkage between extension and research consist of organizational integration of two services. Liaison units, participation of senior researchers in in-service training of extension agents, joint service units, joint location for two services, and periodic transfer of extension personnel to research departments, periodic transfer of researchers to extension units.

One of the notable topics in recent decade has been the use of local knowledge in different programs, activities and processes for rural development. New point of views denote that in, especially, agricultural extension , the effective model should be the formal & local knowledge integration since rural people enjoy local knowledge systems that alongside with new technologies can result in appropriate achievements. The present paper is after realizing this goal but what is important here is the methodology of this study. The Grounded Theory is the proper method used here by the use of which a conceptual model is obtained that presents a suitable extension strategy in the given region.

The present paper examined the existence of export comparative advantage of Iran's apple export or lack of it, and its changes over the period of 1362 - 1378. It also determined competitive situation (comparative advantage) of Iran's apple export between major apple exporter countries during the period of 1995 – 1999. By using the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA), Revealed Symmetric Comparative Advantage (RSCA) and X2, the results of this study indicated that Iran's apple export structure is faced with fluctuations and competitive position of its apple export has been weakened within the studied period.The instabilities in the trends of mentioned indices during the study show that there is no defined program in Iran's apple export, and some essential actions should be considered here.