Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2003 | Volume:10 | Issue:4(40)|Papers Count:8

An increase in inflation rate and unemployment or a decrease in economic growth rate are supposed to be the salient factors in decreasing the life level of people in developing countries. A market oriented system through publisizing commodities markets and production factors, flexibility in financial system and appliying a more effective role to private sector in economic activities has provided a suitable condition for achieving a high economic growth rate and welfare. The objective of this study has been to survey the effective factors on agriculture sector growth and also to determine the casualty relationship between the growth rate of this sector and the factors affecting it. Consequently, time series data (1344-1375) were used here in this study. Structural and non-structural econometric models, and also Johansen"s cointegration test for investing the cointegration and long-run relationships among cointegrated variables have been used as well. The results indicated that the ratio of private and public investment variables to value added, and also the export growth of agricultural sector to the growth of the sector itself has been positive. On the other side, the import growth of agricultural sector and employment growth had a negative effect on it. Value added of agricultural sector has had a two-sided relationship with other variables.

The main purpose of this study has been to define the production comparative advantages in major rice groups (qualified long-grain rice, high - yield long grain rice, qualified medium-grain rice and short-grain rice) in two provinces, Gilan and Mazandaran during 1994- 2000. In doing this, the statistics and data of production cost plan issued by the ministry of Jihad-e Agriculture have been applied. For measuring the comparative advantages, domestic resource cost (DRC) ratio has been applied. The results of this research show that during the years 1994- 2000, about 9.1, 46.7 , 30.0 and 66.4 percent of qualified long-grain rice, high-yield long-grain rice, qualified medium-grain rice and short-grain rice producers, respectively, have had comparative advantages in Mazandaran province. For rice groups in Gilan province, the figures are respectively 4.3, 19.7, 4.0 and 8.1. Therefore, the percentage of producers with comparative advantages in Mazandaran is higher than that of producers in Gilan.

In this research a theoretical framework for surveying the economic efficiency under risk is presented. The cross-sectional data used in this research are gathered through a two- stage cluster sampling method from 63 maize producers of Fars region during 2001. It has been assumed that the risk has originated from the lack of knowledge on two risks, technical and allocative. By using a stochastically frontier production model and also by having the risk involved in the behavioral assumption represented to producers, in form of the stochastic variable, the method of estimating economic deficiency is developed. According to the findings, economic efficiency mean is 63.4 percent. It was also evident that from 20 to 25 percent of economic deficiency originated from technical risk, when 6 to 8 percent depend on the allocative risk.

Date is a plant that is Fructify in an area with 29 to 39 northern and southern geographical latitude from Equator and height that is 1250 meter lower than sea surface. In the world, only 20 countries possess these qualifications for producing desired date. Islamic Republic of Iran has had first rank in production, and the second rank in export, for several times in recent years. Based on accomplished researches, date producing returns, in Jahrom region is 1.8 time of other date producing areas in Iran. About 95% percent of produced date in this region is Shahani variety. Nevertheless, in recent years, this product has encountered some problems, due to its price falling. The main objective of the study is determining the suitable floor price as well as economical scale of date production in Jahrom region. In order to remove these problems, the government implemented guaranteed price for date. In order to determine whether this price, which is applied by honorable economy council, is suitable or not, the flour price has been calculated by using Translog cost function and by calculating minimum average variable cost.

Because of its various consumptions, cotton enjoys an economic and commercial importance nowadays, and perhaps that is why it is called the White Gold. In Iran as well, cotton has been considered one of the salient agricultural productions, especially in textile in which it is the raw material. Cotton has also been one of the export productions in agriculture sector. In this research based on the data and statistics of the years 1994- 99, the efficiency of 13 provinces in producing cotton has been measured by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. The results indicate that cotton producers" technical and management efficiency is in a high level.

The main objective of this survey is to assess the technical knowledge level and its application in irrigated wheat production among farmers of Tehran and Isfahan provinces. The data was collected by questionnaire whose reliability was approved by Cronbach"s coefficient alpha (0.82), among 198 sample farmers including 81 farmers from two wheat cultivated regions in Tehran province and 117 from two regions in Isfahan province. The data was analyzed by SPSS-Win software and apart from descriptive methods. The findings showed that, there is a positive significant correlation between technical knowledge level and its application level. The results of stepwise regression also indicated that the most important variables which describe 30.7 percent of variation of the technical knowledge level are: using different technical knowledge sources, education level, attending training courses and the farm size. The most important independent variables which describe level of technology application are: technical knowledge level, using knowledge sources, distance from agricultural service centers , attitude to extension programs and ownership of machinery, which describe 46.9 percent of the technology application variation. It was also found out that the level of technology application, times of urea fertilizer usage, technical knowledge level and using micro fertilizers, describe 34.4 percent of wheat yield variation. The t-test results indicated that there is no significant difference between technical knowledge level and technology application.

The main purpose of this study was to assess the extensionists" attitude toward participatory activities with researchers. The design of this study was descriptive-correlation that was carried out by a survey method. The population of this study consisted of all 282-extensionists" employed by Jihad-e Agriculture Organization in the province of Western Azarbaijan of Iran. In order to select the staffs a complete proportionate randomized sampling technique was used in this study. Then a questionnaire was developed to measure the professional staffs" attitude toward participatory activities with researchers. A Cronbach Alpha, reliability coefficient of 0.79 was achieved for the instrument. The result indicated that the majority of extensionists" attitude toward participatory activities with researchers can be classified as "positive". This indicates that the professional staffs have a great potential to succeed in fulfilling the goals of participatory approach toward extension activities and rural development. The participants" age and years of experience with extension activities showed to have a reverse and statistically significant relationship with their attitude toward participatory activities with researchers. Despite the fact that a majority of extensionists" believed it is necessary to have a strong relationship among extensionists, researchers and farmers, they expressed that the relation between extensionists and farmers is "weak" and "very weak" between extension and research institutes.