Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development
Year:2020 | Volume:28 | Issue:109|Papers Count:10

Iran,as a country with considerable climatic variations,is one of the most diverse regions of the world in terms of vegetation.This makes it possible to produce many agricultural products in the country.Although the figures represent relative growth of agricultural exports over several years,the volatility of these facts and figures is great,and in most cases,export performances are annually lower than the year forecast.With this approach,this study aimed at examining and evaluating the factors affecting the Iran’s exports of agricultural products and food industry during 1991-2014,with emphasis on competitiveness index of real exchange rate.For this purpose,the panel data approach was used to calculate the integrated bilateral real exchange rate.The study results showed a significantly positive effect of integrated real exchange rate on the Iranian export of agricultural and food industry products.The results also revealed that national income of importing countries had a significantly positive effect on export demand and its extent was greater than that of the integrated bilateral real exchange rate.Accordingly,with one percent increase in the competitiveness index of integrated bilateral real exchange rate and the national income,export demand increases by 0.19 and 1.41 percent,respectively.Finally,the results indicated that unlike the two aforementioned variables,the relative prices of exports had a significantly negative impact on export demand of Iran,so that during a long run,with one percent increase in the relative prices,export demand would reduce by 0.78 percent.

Energy subsidy reform effects on various social groups (producers and consumers) have always been a challenging dilemma for policymakers and researchers in agricultural economics,This study aimed at investigating and quantifying the impacts of targeted energy subsidies on the well-being of consumers and producers of rice in Iran using price endogenous mathematical programming model,The results showed that the targeted subsidies for fuel as a very influential factor in the production and marketing of rice could cause a slight decrease in production as well as increases in prices;then,a new equilibrium in the market would be created for this product,so that the social welfare might be reduced due to a reduced consumers’welfare while indicating a slight increase in the welfare of rice producers,Therefore,the implementation of this policy might create a recession in the rice market,Accordingly,the investment in production technology through the use of improved and high yield seeds and the increase in consumption efficiency by reducing the rice waste were recommended for increasing the production and supply of the products,

Given the importance of understanding the agricultural risk behavior for useful policy making in agriculture, this study aimed at determining the degree of absolute risk aversion of farmers in Goharbaran region of Sari County in Iran using multi criteria decision making (MCDM) analysis. Then, the relation between the degree of risk aversion of the farmers and their socio-economic characteristics were investigated. Required data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with 250 farmers in 2014. The study results showed that majority of the farmers belonged to the group with high level of risk averse; and among their effective socio-economic characteristics (including age, education, farm size, family size, agricultural income, percentage of income from farming, land ownership, farming experience and loan), the variables of agricultural income, percentage of income from farming and family size were positively and farm size and loan negatively correlated with the absolute degree of risk aversion of the farmers. Considering the high degree of risk aversion among majority of the studied farmers, the risk management would seem to be highly important. Therefore, a number of measures like common cultivation, product diversification and population control by the farmers themselves and strategies such as development of cooperatives, credit expansion, guaranteed prices, insurance and establishment and development of futures markets by policy makers were suggested.

Production inputs are one of the most important factors affecting the risk of agricultural products. This study aimed at investigating the effects of inputs on the production risk of irrigated and rainfed wheat through the information collected from 221 producers of these products in eastern region of Golestan province of Iran in the 2015-2016 cropping year using the suggested model of Just and Pope (1979). The results showed that for both products, seed input had a significant positive impact on the average production; also, the inputs of fertilizer and consumed water had the production increasing impact on the average irrigated wheat production, while such an impact could be found by application of the inputs including fertilizer, pesticide, machinery and labor for the rainfed wheat. In addition, the study results indicated that the pesticide input used for both products had a risk increasing impact on the production; furthermore, the inputs of seed and labor for the rainfed wheat and the fertilizer and machinery inputs for the irrigated wheat reduced the production risk. Therefore, the study recommended using properly the risk reducing inputs at the right time to reduce the production risk of irrigated and rainfed wheat crops and as a result, to increase the average production of such a strategic product.

Considering the hypothetical bias in the choice experiment is known as a traditional hypothesis in literature of the subject. But how to apply the methods of reducing the hypothetical bias is still a controversial issue among researchers. Considering the hypothetical bias, this study suggested further evidence regarding the preferences of organic tea consumers in Tehran city of Iran. The data and information needed for this study were obtained through the questionnaires completed randomly by 405 individual consumers in 2016. The choice experiment method and the logit model were used to survey the preferences of organic tea consumers in three groups. The study results showed that for the three different groups of base (without considering the hypothetical bias), cheap talk, and honesty priming, the average amounts of willingness to pay for the attributes were estimated 116080, 274940, and 186410 IR Rials, respectively, indicating that the application of hypothetical bias mitigation techniques would cause a reduction in the bias and more realistic willingness to pay of the consumers. With respect to the consumers’ high willingness to pay for the organic tea characteristics, it was recommended to raise the people’ s awareness about the benefits of organic tea, resulting in an increase in demand of the product and the health in community as well.

Impact of trade liberalization in different economic sectors on environmental pollution in Iran has become one of the challenges faced by policymakers. This study aimed at investigating the effects of agricultural intra-sectoral trade liberalization indexes on environmental degradation in Iran using the indexes of level of international trade (LIT), integration of international trade (IIT) and agriopenness in agriculture sector within Johansen-Juselius cointegration model (VECM) for the period of 1981-2015. The study results showed that all of these three indexes had significantly negative effects on the environmental degradation; also, intensity of energy consumption in agriculture sector and value added in this sector caused an increased environmental degradation. Finally, it was suggested that the government should pay more attention to transnational and extraterritorial cultivation while supporting the agricultural products with high relative advantages and less degradation impact on the environment of the country as well.

This study aimed at estimating the consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price and examining the factors influencing them for health-oriented chicken meat in Shiraz city of Iran. For this purpose, the health-oriented chicken meat with three attributes (including antibiotics free production process, full emptying of chicken abdominal contents during slaughtering and average carcass weight, i. e. size chicken, at the place of supply) was primarily introduced to the consumers. Contingent valuation method with single and double bounded questionnaires was used to assess the consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) by completing 601 face to face questionnaires during autumn 2017. By performing a pretest, the parameters of the WTP distribution of target statistical population were determined and based on the methodology of Cooper (1993), the bid price vector was selected optimally. The results of the econometric models estimation showed an efficiency superiority of the double-bounded model over the single-bounded model. In addition, the household head’ s educational level and the household income indicated positive effects on WTP while age and household dimension represented significantly negative effects. The extra consumers' WTP for health-oriented chicken meat was estimated to be averagely 26420 and 24240 IR Rial/Kg for single and double bounded models, respectively, that is, 35 and 32 percent of the conventional chicken meat price. Willing to pay an extra price implicitly implies a potential demand, suggesting an opportunity for the producers to gain from the health-oriented chicken meat in the market.

Fast droughts have an extreme effect on farmers. Useful adaptations make smaller negative impacts of the event and vulnerability evaluations of local socioeconomic ecosystems help to start off the process. This aimed at identifying and assessing the socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability of households in four village clusters of Bakan plain in Eghlid County of Iran. Data were collected on the principal components of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity through face to face interviews with 122 farming households of the rural clusters in summer 2018. These principal components were calculated and integrated to create the vulnerability index. The results revealed significant levels of exposure to drought and sensitivity to this extreme event, but restricted capacities to adapt among spatial clusters, resulting in high socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability. Yet, there was found a variation in the vulnerability among the studied households because of different socioeconomic factors such as their livelihood assets; so, they had few adaptive capacities. Finally, it was recommended to take an adaptation policy to consider the needs of the most vulnerable households via a ‘ Poor People First’ approach.

The proper combination of different land use patterns is one of the important factors in maintaining and sustaining water and soil resources, especially in basin areas. Considering economic, social and environmental criteria, this study aimed at investigating the optimal and sustainable land uses in Hablehroud Basin in Tehran and Semnan provinces of Iran. Thus, the SWAT as a model and the PROMETHEE and ELECTRE models as two samples of the multi-attribute decision making method were employed. Data for calculating the environmental criteria such as temperature, rain, humidity and evaporation were collected during 26 years and those for the economic and social criteria such as production cost, gross income and employment were collected in 2017. The study results indicated that the horticulture use of land in the south areas of the basin had the first rank and the pasture use of land in the north had the last rank both in terms of socio-economic and environmental criteria. Also, comparing the socio-economic criteria with the environmental ones, opposite ranks were observed for horticulture land use in the north and pasture land use in the south areas. Therefore, based on the results, some recommendations were made to improve the current land use situations as well as to develop the land use patterns in the studied basin.

Financial and credit institutions including agricultural banks encounter limited resources. So, to keep their financial ability to support agricultural production sustainably as well as to allocate the financial resources optimally, they should prioritize the activities based on their capital returns. In this regard, this study aimed at analyzing the capital returns of the selected agricultural products in Fars province of Iran. For this purpose, an individual production function comprising both physical and human capitals was estimated for all selected products including agronomical, horticultural and livestock products using panel data of 2005-2014. The findings showed that for all activities, the physical capital had the most contribution to production; however, this contribution varied among the products significantly. Comparatively, the capital returns for horticulture and livestock activities tended to be higher. The returns ranged from 0. 45 to 0. 8 for agronomical products while the corresponding ranges were 0. 5-0. 9 and higher than 0. 7 for livestock and horticultural products, respectively. In addition to the physical and human capitals, as an innovative and control variable, De Martonne climatic index was used in estimated equations. This allowed an assessment of the geographical implications, indicating that regions with higher precipitation, possibly northern and western regions, had better condition to grow output, deserving to be taken into consideration in allocating the credit resources. Based on the capital returns, among the livestock products, red meat might be prioritized while among the horticultural products, citrus, walnuts, peach, apple, pistachios and apricot would be preferred over others. As for agronomical activities, investment priority belongs to machineries.