Agricultural Economics
M. Bahadori; B. Rahimi Badr; A. Nikouei; R. Eshraghi Samani
Abstract
Introduction The seed industry is a growing industry in the world, and the role of processed seeds in increasing the production performance is undeniable. Due to the population growth, the importance of achieving food security is increasing. Healthy seed is one of the important factors in the development ...
Read More
Introduction The seed industry is a growing industry in the world, and the role of processed seeds in increasing the production performance is undeniable. Due to the population growth, the importance of achieving food security is increasing. Healthy seed is one of the important factors in the development of agricultural production. Although agricultural production systems have increased their production, it does not seem to be enough, though. The basic problems of the seed market and insufficient supply of seeds required by farmers have made it necessary to identify samples of seed quality development. The current research was the first research at the national level dealing with the design of a conceptual model for the development of control and certification of wheat seeds using the grounded theory method and prioritization of effective factors. Materials and MethodsThis research had a fundamental-applicative goal and was applied in at two stages. In At the first stage, after designing the interview questions, the grounded theory was carried out in three stages of open, central, and selective coding using a systematic approach in order to design a conceptual model. After designing the paradigm model and identifying the factors affecting the development of seed control and certification, the prioritization of the components was done including technical, social, economic and structural criteria using analytic network process. Results and DiscussionAfter analyzing the interviews, 140 initial codes were identified and the initial codes were reduced to 94 and then to 47 concepts. In the following parts, 11 core categories including processed seed production standards, laws and regulations, environmental factors, regulatory factors, equipment and technology, stability in the seed market, government support policies, human factors, wheat seed quality, attitude and awareness, and economic infrastructure were identified. The results of prioritization among the four effective criteria on the development of seed certification indicated that the technical criterion was more important than the other three criteria. In terms of the prioritization of the components, the quality of the seed kernel having a weight of 0.49, the performance of the responsible expert having a weight of 0.44, the cost of producing processed seeds having a weight of 0.39 were the first priority of technical, social, and economic criteria. Applying the ranking of production units with a weight of 0.57 and making the seed market competitive with a weight of 0.26 were more important than other components of structural criteria. ConclusionAccording to the results of this study, and the first priority of the technical criterion, it is suggested to monitor the quality of seed kernels and select appropriate farm inspectors. Moreover, in order to strengthen the human resources system, it is recommended to hold continuous courses in the field of seed quality. To implement the solutions of the paradigm model, it is recommended to prevent buying and selling unhealthy seeds and balance the costs of producing and selling processed seeds.
Agricultural Economics
F. Mazraeh; H. Amirnejad; A.R. Nikooie
Abstract
IntroductionIn recent years, climate change and global warming, by reducing rainfall and higher temperature, have increased the frequency and severity of drought and water scarcity in various parts of the world, including Iran. The study of the annual discharge of rivers located in Qarahsu basin (Golestan ...
Read More
IntroductionIn recent years, climate change and global warming, by reducing rainfall and higher temperature, have increased the frequency and severity of drought and water scarcity in various parts of the world, including Iran. The study of the annual discharge of rivers located in Qarahsu basin (Golestan province) showed that this basin has also faced drought in recent years and since most of the water required of Miankaleh wetland is supplied from Qarahsu River, so Water abstraction for agricultural, urban and industrial uses will have a major impact on the ecosystem of Miankaleh wetland. Given that agriculture is the main economic activity in the Golestan province and also it is the largest consumer of water and food security providers in the region Therefore, reducing irrigation water consumption can provide the extra water needed to protect the wetland. In order to sustainable supply water required of Miankaleh wetland in Gorgan Gulf, and preventing to dry the wetland, and using area's capacity in food security, attending to water resources management is very important in Qarehsou river Basin and Gorgan Gulf (Miankaleh wetland).Materials and MethodsIn this paper, a hydro-economic river basin model was used to water optimal allocation of Qarehsou River among water users in the basin (including irrigation activities, urban, industrial, and fishery uses, and environment) and protecting the Miankaleh wetland ecosystem (Gorgan Gulf). The empirical river basin model includes three reduce forms of hydrological components, regional optimization components, and environmental components and can make the integrated linkage between hydrologic, economic, institutional, and environmental components. This model also simulates demand nodes' behavior under different drought scenarios. The linkage between the three model components allows a rigorous evaluation of the quantitative impacts of drought on water availability in the river basin under study, the effects on the users’ behaviors, and the private and social-economic benefits and costs of water use. The hydrological model of the river basin is based on the principles of water mass balance, which determine the volume of water availability in the different river reaches. This water available can be used for economic activities after taking into account the environmental restrictions for economic activities. In the economic component, the economic benefits of water demand are maximized by using water demand functions subject to technical and resource constraints. In the environmental component, we maximize the benefits that environmental characteristics provide for society and compare them with the benefits of other applications.Results and DiscussionThe results showed, in the current condition, the allocation and consumption of water have not been optimal between nodes in the Qarehsou river basin. In the normal water supply scenario, also total water sources decreased to protect Miankaleh wetland in suitable condition, but the area under cultivation of the most crops increases, which increases water resources consumption in this sector, and finally, the net benefits of the agriculture sector has grown positively. Also, by allocating 18 million cubic meters of water to the wetland, because of optimal water allocation, urban water consumption, and annual gross benefit increase, too. In drought conditions, because of water shortage due to climate change and reduction headwater and surface flows to preserve the wetland, water consumption reduced by all nodes, especially irrigation node. Agricultures can prevent from reducing excessive of their income by changing in cultivation pattern, deficit planting crops with less water, etc. Under drought conditions and water scarcity, although the amount of water available is reduced to all applicant nodes compared to baseline conditions, but it improves the economic benefits of stakeholders, especially the environment sector.Increasing groundwater extraction and decreasing surface water (due to drought and wetland water supply from headwater flow), although Qarehsou river basin has faced water scarcity problem, due to the optimal distribution of water between water demand nodes based on the economic-hydrological model used by changing the cultivation pattern and the use of drought-tolerant crops, the amount of water entering the Miankaleh wetland has increased in normal and drought scenarios and as a result has increased the gross environmental benefits of Qarehsou basin. Therefore, it is recommended to protect the Miankaleh wetland and increase its ecological function, reduce the water allocated value to irrigation sector, and to increase the farmers economy efficiency, optimal cultivation pattern, and applying deficit irrigation strategies promote by agricultural jihad experts in province, and in drought conditions is used suitable strategies for drought to improve water resources management.
R. Heydari Kamalabadi; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian; A.R. Nikooie
Abstract
Introduction: Uncertainty existence in farmers crop production pulsed on important and necessity of science of risk management in the agricultural sector. The new risk management selects the best tools and techniques to minimize risks and consequences of decisions. Furthermore, determining the nature ...
Read More
Introduction: Uncertainty existence in farmers crop production pulsed on important and necessity of science of risk management in the agricultural sector. The new risk management selects the best tools and techniques to minimize risks and consequences of decisions. Furthermore, determining the nature of the risk of crops yield can provide useful information about how to manage the risk of the agricultural sector. One of the effects of climate change is caused damage in the agricultural sector. Dependence of crops to climate change is caused that climate factors have a determinative role in the occurrence of crops damaged. Performed studies on the economic effects of climate change have shown that climate change has a significant impact on agricultural yield and its production risk. Moreover, climate change influences crop yield and the risk of crop yield. Although several studies have been carried out about the impact of climate change on crops yield in Iran, the effect of climate change on crops yield risk is infrequently considered. Therefore, this article tries to offer a new way for calculating the risk of crops yield using of CVaR in the period 2017-2047 in the zayanderud agricultural system. The innovation of this study can be stated as follows:1) This study used of Value at Risk index, as one of the most important indicators of risk measuring, to measure the risk of crops yield, 2) For calculating of Value at Risk index, different studies are used from a famous probability distribution such as normal distribution, historical data or Monte-Carlo simulation, while in this study tried to calculate VaR index based on the forecasted scenarios of crops yield, and 3) In this study, in order to produce future scenarios of crops yield is used from ANN-PSO combined method for forecasting crops yield.
Materials and Methods: The method of this study includes the following steps:
1) The production of possible scenarios of temperature and precipitation using of AOGCM models: Today, one of the best tools for the production of climate scenarios is Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM).But the main problem in the use of the output of the AOGCM models is the large spatial scale of their computational cells toward the area under study. LARS-WG model is also one of the most famous models to small scale for outputs of AOGCM models. In this study uncertainty related to AOGCM models, is used of for scenarios of all AOGCM models(including A1B, B1 and A2).
2)The production of scenarios of selected crop yield and available water in the period 2017-2047: The production of scenarios of selected crops yield and available water is performed using of combinedmethod of ANN-PSO.To combine neural network with particles warm optimization algorithm, from particles warm optimization algorithm is instead of training the neural network using gradient-based algorithms.
3) Measuring risk of crops yield using of VaR and CVaR indexes: VaR index is one of the most important criteria to measure downside risk that it determines the maximum amount of expected losses of a variable for a certain time period and specific confidence level. In this study (according to the non-normal distribution of crops yield scenarios) is used on the historical simulation approach.
Results and Discussion: In the first phase of research methodology, for producing of climate scenarios from daily available stats related to weather stations of Isfahan, Kabuotarabad, Kuohrang, and Daranwere used. Validation results of LARS-WG model showed that this model is well able to simulate changes of climate parameters. Eventually, 44 scenarios of the maximum temperature, minimum temperature and rainfall wereproduced in each studied stations and for each year. The results of the network design using trial and error methods revealed the best forecast combination model obtained with 3 and6 neurons in the input layer and hidden layer of neural network and assuming the initial population of 200, in PSO algorithm. Results of this step showed that ANN-PSO model is well able to forecast crops yield (wheat, barley, maize and alfalfa) and available water. Furthermore, calculating VaR and CvaR criterain confidence level %95 and for future period of 2017-2047, showed that the values of these two criterions for wheat, barley, maize and alfalfa were equal to (4240, 4205), (4062, 4057), (49061,48480) and (10875,10743) kg/ha. The comparison of the values of these two criterions with the values of last period also showed that for all selected crops, VaR and CvaR criterions is bigger in future period toward last period.
Conclusions: The new offered method can calculate the risk of crops yield due to climate change. The more accurate measuring of risk using of new methods such as CVaR can be suitable guidance for policy man to better management of production risk of crops.
A. Bagheri; A.R. Nikooie; F. Khodadad Kashi; M. Shokat Fadaei
Abstract
Introduction: Irregular consumption of groundwater resources in the northern Mahyar plain that is located in Zayande Rood basin river has considerably decreased the water’s level of aquifer of this plain and groundwater resources as important resources of water supply for agriculture of this region ...
Read More
Introduction: Irregular consumption of groundwater resources in the northern Mahyar plain that is located in Zayande Rood basin river has considerably decreased the water’s level of aquifer of this plain and groundwater resources as important resources of water supply for agriculture of this region have been faced with a negative balance. On this basis, Aquifer management in terms of preserving and sustainability of water resources is very important. The regional economic dependence on irrigated agriculture and the decline of the Mahyar Aquifer due to agricultural pumping have been much of the basis for the relatively recent governmental interest in developing policy alternatives for conserving water in the aquifer. Especially, for the area's economy is based on agricultural production. Although governments supportive payments to agricultural activities are fulfilled for the purpose of increasing of social benefits, it will cause some economic and environmental externalities. The objectives of this study were to analyze and evaluate the outcomes of water price increment as specified water conservation policy alternatives on groundwater consumption and cropping patterns on the aquifer of northern Mahyar plain in Isfahan province, using non-linear optimization models.
Materials and Methods: The objective of this study is to analyze the effects of irrigation water pricing scenarios on groundwater balance and the modification in farmers' cropping patterns in the northern Mahyar plain. The objective function in this study is to maximize net present value to land, management, groundwater, and irrigation systems over a twenty years planning horizon. For these purposes, A Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) model is considered in a dynamic framework and was calibrated to land use data for a base period of 2004-2005. The effects of the eight pricing scenarios of water in the range of zero to 1800 (IRR) on parameters over a period of twenty years were simulated by the model. PMP approach produces a constrained non-linear optimization model that mimics the land and water allocation decision facing producers each year The choice variables in the model are the acreages planted to each of the major crops and the water use by crop. This method is a useful approach in the determination of planning strategies and policies for groundwater systems. This method was intended to collect data and survey-based study of 250 questionnaires, documents, and use of views and experiences of experts.
Results and Discussion: The results derived from the model employed in this work showed that water pricing alone can potentially reduce considerably the consumption of aquifer groundwater, and adjust the trend of overexploitation of groundwater by irrigated agriculture. This effect is generated mainly as a result of water pricing providing incentives to the modification of farmers' cropping patterns through the substitution of crops with higher water requirements by others which use less water. Therefore, another modification in farmers' cropping patterns is substitution of crops with traditional irrigation by modern irrigation system. In fact, it has been analyzed that under certain structural and economic conditions, the effect of pricing policies can generate significant levels of water savings. The chief generalization is that the high water price scenarios significantly decreased the rate of decline in saturated thickness. Regardless of the price scheme, the saturated thickness will increase so long as the rate of recharge exceeds the irrigation rate. Therefore, it stands to reason that we should observe an increase in the saturated thickness than a base price scenario. A limitation of this proposed model regards the assumption of constant technology for both irrigation systems and pumping engines, which is significant in affecting the results.
Conclusions: Water pricing policies can affect water saving, at least in some situations, depending on water tariff rates, external conditions, and type of consumer behavior. Given the initial volume of groundwater in the northern Mahyar plain, it is imaginable that critical conditions will be reached in the near future by continuing the base scenario. A non-linear dynamic programming model in the framework of PMP techniques has been built to analyze the effects of water pricing scenarios on groundwater conservation of northern Mahyar plain. The Positive Mathematical Programming (PMP) method proved to be very effective. As seen in the data section there was not a plethora of information (data) on this subject. Therefore, it was important that the method chosen for this study could use a minimal amount of data while still maintaining accuracy. The PMP method was able to take the minimal data, calibrate to it, and then effectively reproduce the observed results. Additionally, the production function was able to be incorporated into this process seamlessly while maintaining accuracy. The result shows that under the high price scenarios, water application per acre decreased significantly during the early years of the simulated period. This suggests that high water prices have a significant effect on the rate of increment of the northern Mahyar aquifer stability. This is one of the first times that the PMP method has been incorporated into an applied groundwater management problem such as this, while also incorporating hydrological and agronomic information over time.
M. Mardani Najafabadi; A.R. Nikooie; S. Ziaee; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani
Abstract
Introduction: The importance and necessity of regional analysis of cropping pattern could be due to the need of regional balance and present strategies to achieve balance in decision making and allocation of agricultural production resources. The regional planning is a systematic attempt to choose the ...
Read More
Introduction: The importance and necessity of regional analysis of cropping pattern could be due to the need of regional balance and present strategies to achieve balance in decision making and allocation of agricultural production resources. The regional planning is a systematic attempt to choose the best available methods in order to achieve a specific goal in a region. Agriculture planning problems are important from both social and economic viewpoints. They involve a complex interaction of nature and economics. Due to the increase of population, there is always a need for more production to meet the ever increasing demand. One way of achieving high productivity is to increase the area under cultivation. Third -world countries like Iran losing land due to population growth. Agricultural planning problems in terms of social, environmental, and economic issues are important. Decision making in agriculture is generally complicated so that farmers are facing very often conflicting objectives. The scope of this paper is to design and implement a multi-objective mathematical programming model for Isfahan province that optimizes the production plan of agricultural regions taking into account the available resources. Application of the proposed model to the case study of the Isfahan province demonstrates the reliability and flexibility of the model.
Materials and Methods: In the formulation of the proposed model, set restrictions on irrigation water, production inputs (land, fertilizer, and etc.), and economic variables, as well as the minimum and maximum demand, are described. Also, the different objectives of economics (Gross margin maximization of agricultural activities), social (Maximizing the number of labor in agricultural production) and environmental (Minimizing the use of irrigation water and the cost of chemical fertilizers and pesticides) was considered. Fuzzy multi-objective linear programming model was used to solve the proposed model. As study regions, the information of 23 cities located in Isfahan province, Iran by providing questionnaires and statistical data are taken into account. To expand the potential use of the model, the model solution is compared with the existing crop plan of the study regions. Using Access and SQL server database software to manage and initial processing of data and GAMS software to solve the optimization model due to a large number of information, equations and variables used in the proposed model was inevitable. Some parameters also related to the topic of energy such as the total energy produced, the energy produced per hectare, and energy produced per unit of irrigation water are considered.
Results and Discussion: The cultivation regional planning model for Isfahan province was programmed in GAMS software. The importance of each of the objectives were summarized by Jehad-Keshavarzi organization experts of Isfahan province. The weights are 0.3, 0.05, 0.15, and 0.5 for maximizing gross margin, minimizing the use of irrigation water, maximizing the number of labor, and minimizing the cost of fertilizers and pesticides, respectively. The results showed that the main groups of cereals and for ages were reduced from all optimized models. According to the cropping pattern in the multi-objective programming model, two main groups of cereals and for ages have significantly reduced the crop pattern compared to the current and this reduction was32 and58percent, respectively. MOP model proposed reducing the irrigation water use by 10 percent, increase the gross margin by 24 percent, and increase the production by 10 percent. The total energy produced, the energy produced per hectare, and energy produced per unit of irrigation water reduced in all optimized models.
Conclusions: The objective of this study is to present a cultivation regional planning with the multi-objective model for optimal allocation of land under cultivation and proposes an annual agricultural plan for different crops. The output of our research may become a useful analytical tool for agricultural planners. In this study, we have been able to demonstrate that the multi-objective programming approach is a better technique over a single objective criterion when multiple conflicting objectives are involved. According to the results, the most limiting factor in cultivation regional planning is irrigation water. Also, the proposed model offers a reduction in the area under cultivation. So, using reduced irrigation water availability policies to reduce the total cultivated area is recommended. The reduction of energy produced in all optimized model can be a suitable research topic to add restrictions to the proposed model. Some cities like Najaf-abad (in the main groups of horticultural and pharmaceutical crops), Naein (in the main groups of Industrial crops), and Mobarakeh (in the main groups of kitchen garden) have the potential to expand the area under cultivation and can be adopted appropriate promotional activities in these cases.
A.R. Nikooie; M. Zibaei
Abstract
Irrigated agriculture is an important contributor to the expansion of national food supplies and is expected to play a major role in food security of developing countries. Such countries face water crisis for securing the food staples. Well designed water resource policies potentially can improve the ...
Read More
Irrigated agriculture is an important contributor to the expansion of national food supplies and is expected to play a major role in food security of developing countries. Such countries face water crisis for securing the food staples. Well designed water resource policies potentially can improve the water allocation and use efficiency as well as the food security objectives. This paper presents an hyrdro-economic model implemented through the development of an integrated basin framework for sustaining water resources uses and addressing the food security goals. The objective is to maximize the discounted net present value of the sum of both use and environmental economic benefits over a 10 year time horizon, subject to the basin’s hydrological, agronomic, institutional, and economic structure. Using this approach, optimal water allocations and uses is examined in Zayandeh-Rud River Basin of central Iran. This policy is evaluated against a background of two alternative hydrologic supply scenarios. Three important data sources including survey data, incidental studies, reports, and selected expert knowledge were used to assign all needed data for the model. Results reveal that this program not only increases basin's irrigation efficiency, but also improves the food security through increasing proportional sharing of downstream irrigated districts in the food staple productions under reduced water supply. The study approach and the results contributes to realize effective policies toward sustainable management of water resources under water scarcity circumstances. We conclude that river basin analysis within an integrated framework would considerably enhance the effectiveness of sustainable water resource management as well as provide food security for current and future generations.
A.R. Nikooie; M. Rafati; M. Bakhshoodeh
Abstract
Abstract Producing of flowers and ornamental plants in Iran has some challenges and failure in the market structure and marketing of these products. In this study, we evaluated the different marketing channels of flowers and ornamental plants in the existing market structure according to economic criteria ...
Read More
Abstract Producing of flowers and ornamental plants in Iran has some challenges and failure in the market structure and marketing of these products. In this study, we evaluated the different marketing channels of flowers and ornamental plants in the existing market structure according to economic criteria and the characteristics of market structure. Cut-Rose and Esfahan Province were selected as the production and product region samples, respectively. The results showed that producers share from consumer price and marketing efficiency is low. However, in this system due to high losses, there is low technical efficiency. Although, due to high retail price to farm price, price efficiency is high and therefore the total efficiency is also high. Thus, the share of other marketing factors from this high ratio is more than producers. The study of market structure showed that the goods are non-homogeneous and entrance requirement is hard and combined with uncertainty. Therefore, the marketing system of flowers and ornamental plants is inefficient and the market structure is a non-competitive structure. This condition that causes incomplete information in the market, will not allow the possibility of production planning for producers and as a result of excess supply or demand, the level of price volatility in wholesale is high. While the retail price has less volatility and reduced market price is not transferred to the consumer in many times. Therefore, the lowest and highest possible price is respectively received and paid by producers and consumers. In this regard, reform of flower market structure was proposed in Iran.
