AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS: IRANIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS (ECONOMICS AND AGRICULTURE JOURNAL)
Year:2020 | Volume:14 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

Introduction Food consumption trend has changed in recent decades due to the increasing attention of consumers in what they eat (Chrysochou, 2010,Banterle et al., 2013). One of the important limiting factors for consumers' choice of healthy and environmentally friendly foods is their time preferences. Consumers' choice behaviors vary according to their time preferences, and these differences depend on their discount rate (Adams, 2012). Discount rate indicates the relative value of consumption over time. People with higher time preferences discount the future at a higher rate and thus value the present more than the future. On the other hand, the desirability of consumption in the future for people with lower preferences rates is higher than the desirability of consumption in the present (Frederick et al., 2002). Studies on the effect of temporal preferences on health-oriented behaviors show that people with low temporal preferences are less likely to smoke (Harrison et al., 2010), more interested in sports (Adams & Nettle, 2009), less likely to consume alcohol (Takanori & Goto, 2016), and more likely to undergo periodic medical examinations (Bradford, 2010). Also, the results of Houston & Finke's study (Houston & Finke, 2003) on the effect of time preferences on diet selection showed that people with higher time discount rates have lower diet quality and less attention to nutrition information labels of consumption pattern. However, the effect of time preferences on evaluation of healthy and environmentally friendly foods from the perspective of consumers has not been addressed so far. In this context, the effect of people's time preferences on premium price for organic rice as a health-oriented commodity is investigated in this study. Research Methodology Elicit consumers time preferences The Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) scale is used to investigate the effect of time preferences on the selection of healthy and environmentally friendly food of organic rice (Borghans & Golsteyn, 2006,Adams & Nettle, 2009,Joireman et al., 2012,De Marchi et al., 2016). This scale is composed by 14 items. Seven of these scales are related to people's concerns about the future and constitute the CFC-Immediate (CFC-I) subscale,the other seven items, are related to people's attention to the present and constitute the CFC-Future (CFC-F) subscale (De Marchi et al., 2016). To understand the respondents' behavior, they were asked to assign the number seven to each item if each item is completely similar to their behavioral characteristics and to one if it is completely different from their behavioral characteristics. If these properties are intermediate, they are asked to acordingly select one of the numbers greater than 1 and less than 7. Contingent valuation Contingent valuation is one of the most important valuation methods based on the stated preferences in which, the consumers' willingness to pay for a new product is estimated via creating a hypothetical market (Shi et al., 2014). Given that organic rice is a hypothetical commodity for which there is no market, to derive the willingness of consumers to pay for this commodity, the contingent valuation method based on dichotomouse choice single bounded questionnaire was used. In this method, a premium price is offered to interviewee and he / she answers yes or no based on the amount of his / her willingness to pay, which is higher or lower than the offered price. Data analysis was performed using the censored normal regression model (Cameron, 1991). In order to design the bid vector and choice the sample size, a number of initial questionnaires (pre-test) were completed. Based on the information obtained from the pretest and applying Cooper method (1993), the elements of bid vector and sample volume allocation between different values of bid vector were selected based on the criterion of minimizing the variance of willingness to pay. The sample size was 536 using the Cochran's formula and considering the population of Shiraz city. The required data were collected by completing a questionnaire from the citizens of Shiraz in June 2018. Result and discussion The results of the effect of time preferences index on willingness to pay price premium for organic rice are positive and significant at 1% level. Thus, people who care more about the future and environmental issues tend to pay more, so that for each unit increase in the value of this index, people tend to pay more than 14%. Thus, people who care more about the future and environmental issues tend to pay more, so that for each unit increase in the value of this index, people tend to pay more than 14% for organic rice. This indicates that, given the time preferences of individuals, consumers with a university degree are willing to pay 13% more than those without a university degree. Another important variable affecting willingness of people to pay for healthy and organic products is household income. The results of most studies confirmed the existence of a positive relationship between these two variables (Donaghy et al., 2003,Dettmann & Dimitri, 2009,Gunduz & Bayramoglu, 2011). The findings of this study evealed that the effect of household income on willingness to pay a premium price for organic rice is positive and significant at 1% level. So that, willingness to pay for organic rice increases by an average of 0. 6% with respect to one million rials increase in monthly household income. Also, the effect of educational level on consumers' willingness to pay for organic rice is significant at the 1% level with a positive sign, so that consumers with university education are willing to pay 35% more for organic rice than people without university education. Household dimension is another variable affecting the willingness of consumers to pay extra for organic rice. The coefficient of this variable is significant at the 1% level with a negative sign. Therefore, it can be said that willingness of consumers to pay for organic rice decreases with an increase in the number of households. Based on the estimated coefficients, as result of increasing household population by one persn, the tendency to pay extra shows a decrease of 2. 1%. Conclusion Based on the results, the effect of consumers time preferences on their willingness to pay a premium price for organic rice is estimated to be significant and positive, so that they are willing to pay extra (14. 1%. ) to buy organic rice. The interaction of education and time preferences is found to be significantly positive at 1% level. This suggests that by taking into account fixed level of the individuals' time preferences, consumers with a college education are willing to have a higher price premium (12. 7%) than those without a college education. Therefore, assuming that university education leads to improve environmental insights, increasing public knowledge to protect the environment through public media with the aim of stimulating demand for organic and pro-environmental products, should be considered by policy makers.

Introduction Food security is known as one of the most important priorities in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) following by United Nation (UN). While Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) centered on food security during 2000-2015 still undernourishment is a concern to avoid unsustainability globally. During MDGs programs or even more than three last decades, a wide range of policies were conducted by UN or international organizations to improve food security dimensions in developing societies. These policies involved factors affecting on food security, e. g. cultivation of non-food crops (biodiesel), water management, environmental degradation, labor market, globalization, etc. Based on this background, motivation of this study is providing assessments on food security policies conducted at household levels by using information provided by selected case studies in developing countries. Material and Methods The methodology of this study is formed based on spatial Meta-regression that applies a set of data presented in studies at household levels. Meta-regression, as a useful tool, has capabilities to assess factors affecting on food security indicators measured in pro-poor programs by considering a set of related indicators. Selected studies expanded to household level to consider food security policies, especially in Asian and African countries, used Propensity Score Matching (PSM) approach. This approach focuses on economic indicators of food security changes due to policy measurements and provides useful information to assess policies economically. In addition, lack of non-economic indicators, for example health indicators, to present comprehensive analysis on food security analysis drived researcher to apply PSM in their analysis. In this regard, by increasing studies used PSM, adequate information on status of food security influenced by policies are available. By extracting information on study characteristics such as types of indicator used to determine food security, details on methods to measure effects of policies on the indicator, region or country, year of study and socio-economic dimension of case study households from 26 selected studies between 2009 and 2017, 120 observations on household food security index are gathered. Then the coefficients related to food security index are determined as dependent variable in three types of regression equations distinguished by changed in status of food security index, modifications in PSM approach and kind of policies. Results and Discussion Moran test confirmed the spatial dependence in observation distributed around countries. Hence, the meta-regression is combined by spatial approach for all three equations. Results show: i) decrease in difference between control and treated groups in recent years since improvement in household’, s food security condition due to policies as FAO confirmed as well and improvement in quality of studies,ii) using logit model to determine propensity score makes higher difference between control and treated groups in compare of probit model,iii) financial program does not improve food security condition of treated groups because financial program regardless complementary program such as environmental protection, irrigation, non-farm income and improved seeds could not improve food security index as expressed by Stamoulis & Zezza (2003) and Thomas & Strauss (1997). Suggestions: Therefore, it is strongly suggested that the priority of Asian and African developing countries to avoid food insecurity should be stressed on a set of pro-poor program including improvement of access to food and measures to development of agriculture. Also, considering balance between enhancing household’, s income and facilitating acceptance of technology in farming systems. Results of investigation can be ensured in survey studies applying PSM by using a specific welfare indicator rather than pillared indicators.

Introduction Increasing population and decreasing factors of production highlight to pay more attention to increasing the Total Factors Productivity(Alvanchi & Saboohi., 2007). Today, productivity is the best and most effective way to achieve economic growth, due to the scarcity of production resources. By calculating and analyzing the Total Factors Productivity indicators can evaluate the efficiency of different economic sectors in the use of production resources. In addition, in order to increase productivity should be paid to the agricultural sector as one of the most important and economic sectors in the country, because increasing productivity in this sector due to the special economic structure of the country can help us achieve economic goals )Akbari & Ranjkesh., 2004). Also, among agricultural products, wheat as a pivotal and key agricultural product has a special place in food production and consumption (Bashir et al., 2012). Therefore, the study of productivity in wheat production is of particular importance. In addition, the zoning plan for production areas was performed in small management areas called zones in 2013. After several years of project implementation, in this study has been investigated Total Factors Productivity growth of wheat by method of Spatial-Stochastic Frontier Analysis in Fars province to determine the effectiveness of the zoning plan in the cities of Fars province. However, in most studies productivity growth is achieved by conventional econometrics, in this research, spatial econometric method has been used by considering the spatial interactions between geographical units. Materials and Methode In this study, using the Spatial-Stochastic Frontier Analysis function method is estimated productivity growth. Therefore, by examining the calculation of productivity growth through the Translog cost function based on its flexibility and wide applications in similar studies can be considered the appropriate form of the cost function for the present study. Figure cost function with consideration the time trend variable. Using the estimation of cost function parameters, can be obtained Net technical change, The non-neutral technical change and Technical change due to scale expansion. In general, change in Total Factor Productivity growth is the result of three variables, including changes in production technology, economies of scale, and production growth. 3-Results and discussion Evaluation of the results of calculating the productivity growth of total factors of production shows that in the study period and based on the econometric approach, the productivity of total factors of wheat production in Fars province has grown by an average of 0. 029 per year and the impact of the direct effects of productivity growth average is more than its indirect effects. The share of the effect of scale in the growth of total productivity is more than the share of technology changes, which is the average growth rate of technology change and the effect of scale-0. 002 and 0. 031, respectively. In addition, despite the positive and negative values of productivity growth, the highest and lowest productivity of total production factors among 29 cities of Fars province are related to Kazerun and Kharameh cities with values of 0. 518 and-0. 872, respectively 4-Suggestion Due to the fact that the dispersion and small size of wheat fields are one of the major obstacles to new technologies in Fars province, it does not make the use of machinery cost-effective. Therefore, it is suggested to use expedited ways in this matter, which is integrating lands or land preparation.

Introduction The agricultural sector is one of the most important and main economic sectors of Afghanistan. The growth of the agricultural sector will pave the way for improving the situation of poverty, unemployment and food insecurity in this country. Therefore, the study of the growth model of the agricultural sector And inter-sectoral relations is important in this country. Among these, one of the most important growth models is the regional growth model. In the regional growth model, the growth of each region is influenced by the spatial effects of the regions on each other, and these spatial effects enter the spatial econometric model in the form of a spatial correlation matrix. In the agricultural sector, due to the regional production and policy-making, the main study shows that in the field of studying the Relationships between the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors, including services and industry and factors affecting the growth of the agricultural sector, ignoring the discussion of the effects of spatial dependence of areas on each other, It will lead to bais and inefficient estimates and inaccurate results. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine and explain the spatial autocorrelation by considering the effects of inter-sectoral spillovers (industry and service sectors on the agricultural sector) in the economic-agricultural areas of Afghanistan. The results of this study can be used for policy makers in the agricultural sector of Afghanistan for regional planning and growth of the agricultural sector. Materials and Methods In this study, first, the economic-agricultural areas of Afghanistan have been determined based on climatic conditions and economic and agricultural characteristics. Then, using spatial diagnostic tests, the existence of spatial dependence was investigated and the degree of spatial autocorrelation between the growth of the agricultural sector and other sectors in these areas was measured in the form of dynamic and static panel spatial econometric models for the period 2001-2019. Then the direct and indirect effects of each sectoral and factors were extracted. In addition, the role of Labor force variables, the amount of government investment and non-government (international) support, the level of agricultural education (number of cooperatives in each district) and Dummy variables (ethnicity and religion) and border access In explaining the growth of the agricultural sector, it was identified and evaluated. The information required for this section has been collected from government agencies in the agricultural and economic sectors of Afghanistan. Results and discussion According to the results, Afghanistan was divided into ten economic-agricultural zones. Then, based on the results of spatial diagnostic tests, the growth of Afghanistan's agricultural sector among different regions has a positive spatial autocorrelation. Based on diagnostic statistics, spatial autoregressive model (SAR) was selected compared to spatial errors model (SEM). Also, this model confirm the autocorrelation and the existence of spillovers effects the growth of non-agricultural sector on agricultural sector in these areas. The results of estimating the dynamic Panel Spatial model in the form of fixed effects also confirm the effects of agricultural sector growth with a lag on the growth of subsequent periods,Confirms the results of the static model. The results show that the positive effect of the growth of services and industry on the growth of the agricultural sector, also the variables of labor force, domestic (government investment) and foreign (international support) support of the agricultural sector, growth level of technical capabilities (number of agricultural cooperatives) lead to growth of The agricultural sector and areas with Pashtun ethnicity and neighboring countries have more growth than other areas. The direct and indirect effects of each factor were also extracted based on the static model and confirm the effects of the spillovers of each sector and factors on other areas. Suggestion It is recommended to use the spatial econometric approach in regional and Inter-sectoral policies, especially in Sector development and determining the support and investments of the agricultural sector for the accuracy of analyzes and decisions. Also, increasing spatial communication through the expansion of communication infrastructure can lead to enhanced spillovers of growth benefits. Paying attention to increasing the number of agricultural cooperatives in order to provide services and education to farmers, as well as continuous support for the agricultural sector will pave the way for the sustainable growth of Afghanistan's agricultural sector. On the other hand, paying attention to intersectoral policy-making and balanced sectors development will lead to the overall growth of Afghanistan's economy.

Introduction: Climate change associated with global warming caused by increase of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere has been attracting more attention in recent decades, and has a large effect on the elements of hydrological cycle, including precipitation, evaporation and runoff. Recently many studies have found that due to climate change, there is an increasing trend in the frequency of occurrence and intensity of extreme hydrological events like floods and droughts. In order to better understand the change and provide support for adaptation strategies, it is of great necessity to deeply investigate climate change and have a detailed knowledge of its potential impacts on hydrology, hydraulics, water resources, agriculture, cropping pattern and farmers’,gross margin. In recent years, many studies have been conducted to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the water resources, yield of selected crops and productions in the agricultural sector, especially on cereals and weaving products. The evaluation process is often divided into three steps: Step 1: selection of different Global Climate Models (GCMs) or regional climate models (RCMs) to provide future climate change projections under scenarios representing different development level of society and economy. Step 2: use of downscaling techniques (statistical methods and dynamic methods) to downscale the GCM outputs to regional scale necessary for hydrological models. Step 3: use of hydrological models to simulate runoffs and evaluate the effects of climate change on hydrological regimes. Step 4: use of economic models to assess the effects of climate change in the agricultural sector, which is generally used to achieve practical results in this part from advanced economic models and regression analysis. . . .

Introduction Iran has limited water resources, and more than 90% of its water is used in the agriculture sector. Virtual water exchange plan is a suitable method to optimize water consumption in the agricultural sector. Attention to water resources, economic factors, technology and transportation, society, and the environment is necessary to examine the suitability of virtual water exchange plans between regions. In the present study, using the principal components analysis method and also considering the indicators of resources, technology and transportation, economy, society and environment, an index to evaluate the appropriateness of the virtual water exchange plan for wheat, barley and rice products was defined for each province. The innovation of the present study is the study of 3 different crops and considering all the important indicators for prioritizing the provinces of the country in their cultivation. Also, the innovation of the present study compared to other studies is the study of all provinces of the country. Materials and Methods The purpose of this study is to create a water-ecosystem-economy index according to the conditions of Iran and to use it to investigate the suitability of the virtual water exchange plan for three wheat, barley and rice crops in different provinces. In this regard, in order to determine the appropriateness of the virtual water exchange strategy, at the beginning, the provinces that have a comparative advantage in these three products are determined based on the Aggregated Advantage Index, and then, for the provinces with comparative advantage, Virtual water exchange strategy has been studied through integrated water index. The integrated water-ecosystem-economy index is based on the study of Cui et al. (2018), which has been adjusted according to the conditions in Iran. Principal component analysis (PCA) method was used for indexing. After creating integrated index for each province in each product, the provinces of the country are ranked based on the integrated index in the virtual water exchange of each product, and each province that has more points is suitable for implementing the virtual water exchange strategy for the products. If the integrated index is between 8 and 10, the conditions of the province are very good, between 6 and 8, the conditions of the province are good, between 4 to 6, the conditions of the province are average and below 4, the conditions of the province for crop cultivation are poor. Results and discussion The results show that Kermanshah, Ilam, and Fars are good and North Khorasan and Golestan are weak for the exchange of virtual water of wheat. In the barley, Chaharmahal Bakhtiari has a good condition, and Khorasan Razavi has a weak condition. For paddy, Mazandaran has a good, and Gilan and Golestan have a weak condition. Suggestion 1-The use of the results can help managers and policymakers to solve the problems of water in the country. 2-It is suggested that in future studies, horticultural and industry products should be considered.