INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
Year:2011 | Volume:2 | Issue:1 (2)|Papers Count:8

Integrated Rice-Fish Farming requires very little input and provides off season employment to farm labors. It has been observed that combination of rice and fish farming is mutually beneficial. Although, in implementation, it can be faced with several challenges and it demands some requirements. So, this study was conducted to identify challenges and requirements of Integrated Rice-Fish Farming in Gilan. The research population included all the experts in Gilan province (N=272). They include experts who are familiar with integrated Rice-Fish Farming. The initial and follow-up mailing generated 272 useable responses from experts resulting in a response rate of 100%. Using factor analysis, the challenges and requirements have been classified into four factors (Cultural-social, Human, Infrastructure, and Legal) and six factors (Educational methods, Cultural, Facilitating role, participation, Human resource development, and Economic) respectively. Among the variables which build the Cultural-social challenges, operator demographic challenges and farmers’ low educational level provides more impact compared to others, while holding field days and establishing demonstration plots provides more impact on the Educational Methods requirements, among other variables.

This study aims to study the effect of elimination of government intervention and liberalization in meat market in rural area in Iran on consumer welfare with time series data for 1981-2007.An alternative partial equilibrium model was developed to examine the welfare effect of meat trade liberalization. Result show that on producer side, government budget (subsidy on production), foreign exchange and producer welfare are increase, on consumer side, government budget (subsidy expenditure) and foreign exchange are decrease; also the effect of trade liberalization on rural consumer welfare is positive and increase under open access (without considering consumer in urban area).

Agricultural experts in the field of biotechnology in Iran were surveyed in order to explore their perception about factors affecting the partnership between public and private sector in developing agricultural biotechnology. The research population included Agricultural biotechnology experts in the public and private sectors (N=66). A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with some biotechnology experts in the Ministry of Agriculture and Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute to examine the validity of questionnaire. A questionnaire was developed based on these interviews and relevant literature. The data collected by interviewing the respondents and analyzed by using factor analysis technique. To determine the appropriateness of data and measure the homogeneity of variables, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s test measures were applied. KMO amount and meaningful level of Bartlett test for policy making and economic factors shows that they are very suitable for factorial analysis. Based on the results of study, intellectual property rights and allocating low interest rate financial facilities to private companies affected the partnership between public and private sector.

198 Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from Iranian milk samples. Almost all isolated LAB showed inhibitory activity towardsE. coli and S. aureus as Gram negative and Gram positive indicators, respectively. No role was observed for hydrogen peroxide in the activity of all isolated strains while organic acids proved a prominent role in all detected inhibitory activities. Within isolated LAB, four strains represented the inhibitory activity againstS. aureus based on the production of bacteriocin-like inhibitory substances (BLIS). Inactivation of the activity by proteolytic enzymes demonstrated the proteinaceous nature of the antimicrobial compounds. The selected producers were identified asL. lactis, E. faecium 1, E. hirae and E. faecium2 based on biochemical tests according to Bergy's manual of systematic bacteriology. L. lactishad the highest Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (320 IU/ml) and showed bacteriostatic mode of activity towards the indicator bacteria.

Salinity of soil and water is the most important agricultural hazard in arid and semi-arid regions. In saline soils, yield production directly influences by soluble salts in the root zone as well as by shallow water table depth. The first step for reclamation of such soils is reducing salinity to optimum level by leaching. The objective of this study was to develop a practical model to estimate water requirement for reclamation of saline-sodic soils at large scale based on some obtainable soil physical characteristics. Consequently, a large area of 3, 216 ha with S4A3 salinity/sodicity class (extreme salinity and sodicity) was selected to obtain the required data. Several mathematical models were applied to the collected data to verify their estimation capability. The results indicated that at large scale, the proposed logarithmic model can provide much better estimates for leaching process than the previously proposed models.

In this paper the trade restrictiveness of agricultural policies in Iran was measured by the TRI index for the nine major agricultural products including wheat, rice, barely, maize, soybean, meat (beef meat), soybean oil, sugar and banana over the period 1981 to 2007. The main results indicate that there is no trend in above index and high volatility especially in 2006 and 2007 years due to considerable increases in tariff of sugar, rice, meat and oil. Based on calculated advalorem equivalents (AVEs) of non-tariff barriers (NTBs), these barriers have a significant contribution to the level of trade restrictiveness measured by the TRI index. Thus, neglecting the restrictiveness of NTBs identify can be very misleading. Moreover, two sets of protected products: First, Over-protected products (rice, oil, sugar and banana) which their actual tariffs are higher than their optimum ones. Second, Under-protected products (wheat, barely, maize, soybean and beef meat) which their actual tariffs are lower than their optimum ones. Due to this, we found that most products are heavily protected and trade policies in agriculture sector have the prohibitive role on welfare and import. This can lead to the decrease in domestic welfare level as well as country’s trade volume with trading partners. Thus, it is necessary to adjust Iran’s agricultural trade tariff regime in order to bridge the gap between the current structure of protection and optimum import duties.

Evaluation of four safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) genotypes for oil content and fatty acid composition showed that oil content varied from 22.16 to 34.39% and the highest seed oil content was obtained from Isfahan14 genotype (34.39%, respectively). Among those fatty acids were detected, linoleic acid (75.81- 77.86%) was the predominant fatty acid followed by oleic (12.57–13.75%), palmitic (6.09–7.07%) and stearic (2.17–2.62%) acids while trace amounts of other fatty acids were presented and the values of them did not exceed 0.81%. The oil content and fatty acid composition of oil among the genotypes were significantly different (P<0.01), indicating that synthesis of them is influenced by genotype and the lipids present in the safflower are rich in premium grade high polyunsaturated essential fatty acids, linoleic acid which makes the oil nutritionally and therapeutically valuable for human consumption.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the environmental attitude and behavior of farmers in the Ilam Province. The population of the research was 210 Farmers. Data were obtained through questionnaire surveys based on the NEP scale and administered to stakeholder in January of 2011 of Ilam Province. The main tool in this Study is questionnaire and its reliability and validity was tested based on expert’s opinion and a pilot study and its Alfa level was %78. For data processing, descriptive statistics were used. Results show that the mean score of the NEP was 51.33 in the study. The results show that the odd-numbered and the even-numbered items in the study have similar tendencies.