Agricultural Economics
S.M. Mojaverian; F. Eshghi; S. Ahangari
Abstract
In addition to imposing a negative impact on public health, Covid-19 has made the world face a huge financial-economic crisis. The worldwide spread of the coronavirus has also affected the volume of transactions and the value of stocks. Since the food market is more affected under crisis conditions, ...
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In addition to imposing a negative impact on public health, Covid-19 has made the world face a huge financial-economic crisis. The worldwide spread of the coronavirus has also affected the volume of transactions and the value of stocks. Since the food market is more affected under crisis conditions, this relationship has been investigated in the stock exchange in the present study. In order to investigate the effect of Covid-19 patients on the stock index value of food industry companies as well as the relationship between risk and stock index value, the official daily data of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the Financial Information Processing Center of Iran were collected from March 3, 2021 when the first report was announced, to June 2, 2021. Mean Conditional heteroscedasticityvariance regression models were used in the current study. The statistical model specification tests showed that, first, the assumption of heteroscedasticitywas rejected and the needto useheteroscedasticitymodels was proved. Secondly, the asymmetry assumption was accepted. Model estimation results showed a relationship between the numbers of Covid-19 patients with the stock value of the food industry that was an increase in the number of infected people causes a decrease in the stock value of the food industry. Therefore, like other economic sectors, the capital market was affected by the Covid-19 crisis, and increasing exchange rate as a competing market had a negative effect on the stock price index. Also, considering the relationship between risk and stock value of food industries, as expected, there was an inverse and significant relationship between risk and stock value of food industry companies. In other words, an increase in risk leads to a decrease in the stock price of food industries.
Agricultural Economics
T. Ranjbar; S.M. Mojaverian; Z. Raftani Amiri; S. Shirzadi Laskookalayeh; F. Eshghi
Abstract
There are four interconnected markets, i.e. oilseeds, crude oil, meal and edible oil, in the vegetable oil supply chain. Nowadays, emerging tools in context of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have critical role to develop the supply chain. The purpose of this study is to identify and ...
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There are four interconnected markets, i.e. oilseeds, crude oil, meal and edible oil, in the vegetable oil supply chain. Nowadays, emerging tools in context of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have critical role to develop the supply chain. The purpose of this study is to identify and prioritize actors' preferences for using blockchain technology in the vegetable oil supply chain. For this purpose, we applied the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. We interviewed 15 experts, including scientific specialists from adjacent fields and actors in the vegetable oil supply chain, in 2021, to determine the weight of the pairwise comparison matrix. This study evaluated the leading indicators of management improvement, performance improvement, data security, transparency, traceability and visibility, as well as their sub-indicators. The calculation of final weight revealed the most relevance of sub-indices, i.e. increasing inter-organizational trust, compatibility and secure data compatibility, with value of 0.467, 0.043 and 0.043, respectively. The rest of the indicators were also ranked as data immutability, close relationship with suppliers, degree of privacy, forecasting, strategic planning capabilities, reduction of lead time and doing the order on time, respectively. The lack of trust between circles and actors is thus the most crucial obstacle and the largest potential for the new chain in the current supply chain. More training and knowledge of supply chain players on emerging technologies should be put on the agenda to achieve optimal supply chain management. Our results also suggested solutions for advocating for the planning and development of the required infrastructure for the implementation of blockchain technology in Iran.
Agricultural Economics
M. Taslimi; H. Amirnejad; S.M. Mojaverian; H. Azadi
Abstract
Introduction: The final energy consumption per capita in Iran in the agricultural sector is 3.4, as well for household sector is 2, besides the commercial and public sectors are 1.6, and transportation and industry are 1.4 times the global average. This is due to low efficiency in operation, high energy ...
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Introduction: The final energy consumption per capita in Iran in the agricultural sector is 3.4, as well for household sector is 2, besides the commercial and public sectors are 1.6, and transportation and industry are 1.4 times the global average. This is due to low efficiency in operation, high energy consumption, as well as the use of energy goods and services. The use of renewable energy in the agricultural sector, while increasing the security of energy supply, will reduce global warming, stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and increase per capita income and social justice and environmental protection in all areas. The purpose of this study is to investigate farmers' preferences for using solar energy in Sari.Materials and Methods: The Choice Experiment methods allow researchers to focus on valuing final changes as multidimensional features rather than discrete changes. Choosing between options encourages respondents to examine their preferences in detail related to different management programs. The Choice Experiment test approach consists of several steps, which include designing the Choice Experiment test, determining the sample size and method of data collection, estimation process, and modeling the Choice Experiment test. Designing a Choice Experiment test consists of five important steps which are defining attributes, determining the relevant levels, conducting an experimental design, constructing Choice sets, and measuring preferences. After determining the criteria affecting the prioritization of renewable energy, liketechnical, environmental, economic, social, and political criteria, in order to investigate the willingness to Pay of Sari farmers, a test questionnaire was designed. The criteria obtained from the review of prioritization of renewable energy were considered as the attributes of the Choice Experiment and the price attribute was added to the above criteria. A total of six technical, economic, social, political, environmental, and price attributes were considered to investigate farmers' willingness to pay. In the review of the studies and the current situation, the levels of each of the attributes were determined. To determine the levels of price attribute, these points were considered; the price of agricultural electricity per kilowatt-hour is 383 Rials, which was approximately 400 Rials for the current situation.Results and Discussion: To investigate the farmers' preferences for using solar energy, 98 questionnaires of farmers in Sari were completed in September 2019. Each questionnaire included 8 choice set cards and each card included three options, based on which, the number of observations in Sari is equal to 2352 observations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the preferences of farmers in Sari for the use of solar energy. For this purpose, the Multinomial logit, the Random parameter logit, the latent class, and the Random parameter logit latent class are used. Based on the results of the Multinomial logit method, environmental and price attributes at the level of one percent and economic attribute at the level of five percent are statistically significant, but political, social, and technical attributes are not statistically significant. The Alternative-specific Constants (ASC) in the first and second options are not statistically significant. Based on the results of the Random Parameter Logit estimation method, environmental, economic and price attributes are statistically significant at the level of one percent. Technical, political, and social attributes are not statistically significant, which shows that farmers do not make a significant difference between these two attributes. The Alternative-specific Constants (ASC) are significant in the first option at the level of five percent and the second option at the level of one percent. The results of latent class estimation show that in the first class, environmental, economic, political, social, and price attributes are statistically significant at the level of one percent and technical attribute at the level of ten percent. The Alternative-specific Constants (ASC) are statistically significant at the level of one percent in the first class. In the second class, technical attribute at the level of five percent and environmental attribute at the level of ten percent are significant, besides other attributes in the second class are not statistically significant. The most sensitive class is the first class and farmers of the second class are considered the base class. The results obtained from the Bayesian and Akaike criteria of different classes showed that the two classes have the lowest values of BIC and AIC criteria and the class is appropriate. After determining the appropriate class, the model was estimated. The results of model estimation were calculated by the Latent Class Random Parameter logit method. In the first class, environmental attributes and price are significant at the level of one percent and economical attributes at the level of five percent. Also, the Alternative-specific Constants (ASC) is significant at the level of one percent, but, in the second class, the attributes are not statistically significant. Technical, environmental, economic, political, social, and price attributes, as well as the option of status quo or the Alternative-specific Constants (ASC) in the second class, do not affect farmers' utility due to the lack of statistical significance.Conclusion: A comparison of the results obtained from the four methods shows that the highest value of the estimated coefficient for environmental attributes was in the latent class method and the lowest value was in the multinomial logit method; Comparison of fitted methods shows that the highest Log-likelihood is related to the latent class random parameter logit method and the lowest value is related to the multinomial logit method. Accordingly, the highest value of Akaike and Bayesian criteria is related to the multinomial logit method and the lowest value is related to the latent class random parameter logit method which is better than other methods according to the good fit criterion.
Agricultural Economics
H. Amirnejad; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian; F. Kashiri Kolaei; M. Taslimi
Abstract
Introduction: The resistive economy, in the sense of managing the current situation in the country, minimizes the risks. In other words, establishment of the necessary institution in Iranian economy by using a set of policies, laws, and executive measures in such a way to minimize its risk against harmful ...
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Introduction: The resistive economy, in the sense of managing the current situation in the country, minimizes the risks. In other words, establishment of the necessary institution in Iranian economy by using a set of policies, laws, and executive measures in such a way to minimize its risk against harmful shocks and disturbances, especially foreign and international ones, would provide the ground for the country to achieve sustainable economic progress. One of the most important methods in this regard, in creating the infrastructure of a resistive economy, is development of the agricultural sector. In fact, due to the distinctive features of the agricultural sector, this sector can be considered as the driving force of the economy within the framework of the resistive economy. To achieve such an economy, the challenges and potentials facing this sector must be identified while determining optimal investment for the basic sectors. Due to the capabilities of agricultural production in Mazandaran province, in this study, for identifying the problems and opportunities in the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture, a type of SWOT analysis was used in which relative weights are calculated through a linear mathematical programming model. Finally, by using the QSPM approach, prioritization strategies were developed for each subsector.Material and Methods: In the SWOT analysis, the AHP approach was used to extract the pairwise comparisons of internal and external factors from the opinions of the interviewed experts in the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture. SWOT analysis has been used to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and the combination of linear programming. Therefore, AHP approach is used to calculate the weight for criteria and alternatives at each level. In this research, a two-step linear programming method has been used to calculate the priority vector. In the first step, according to the pairwise comparison matrix, a formulation that provides a consistency limit is used. In the second step, according to the compatibility limits obtained in the previous step, for calculating marginal weights of the criteria, another linear programming model is used. After calculating the relative weights of each of the components of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, as well as determining some strategies, using expert opinions, the QSPM approach has been used to prioritize strategies. For this purpose, the attractiveness coefficients of each strategy were extracted according to the Swot components and by multiplying the attractiveness coefficients by the relative weights, the total score for each Swot component was calculated for each strategy and finally with the total score of the Swot components, a total score for each strategy was calculated. Finally, Excel and GAMS software were used to estimate the results.Results and Discussion: According to the results of SWOT analysis in the agriculture and horticulture sector, among the important strengths in Mazandaran province, this subsector can be ranked first in the production of various products, variety of climatic conditions and suitable water resources, the existence of fertile and suitable lands and variety of products. In contrast to the above strengths, weaknesses such as traditional and small units of exploitation, lack of guaranteed purchase and non-payment of debts on time by the government and cooperatives, low irrigation efficiency and low productivity of inputs (land, labor, etc.), lack of proper marketing system and the weak role of the government are some of important challenges in the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture in Mazandaran province. The opportunities facing the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture include the existence of ports and export terminals, existence of suitable fields for the construction of processing industries, improvement and establishment of fruit and vegetable terminals, and the existence of agricultural sub-graduates. The most important factors that threaten the activity of subsectors of agriculture and horticulture are related to the problems of financing and bank interest rates, land-use change and land trade, excessive import of agricultural and horticultural products, and small number of related processing industries. The results of prioritizing strategies through the QSPM approach also showed that according to aggressive strategies, in the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture, strategies like "Increased aggressive racial reform research ", "Establishment of fruit and vegetable export terminals" and "Development of processing industries", in the subsector of livestock strategies like "Export development and entry into global markets", "Product and market development", "Establishment of facilities for export to the Caspian littoral states" and "Improvement of livestock breeds to increase production" , and in the subsector of fisheries "Aquaculture Development", "Development of Fisheries Industry", "Private and public sector support and investment" and "Establishment of facilities for export to international markets" are among strategies for strengthening the economy of the province and the country that can be considered.Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it is suggested that more attention in terms of capital support, and regional policies should be given to the subsectors of agriculture and horticulture in this situation. Also, appropriate measures should be taken to increase the productivity of the agricultural sector in line with the resistance economy. It is also suggested that solutions such as guaranteed purchase, providing facilities for small and job-creating projects, use of agricultural researchers and graduates for improving and implementing of racial reform research, support and development of processing industry of agricultural products, market development and increasing exports of agricultural products, should be used.
F. Mojtahedi; S.M. Mojaverian; S.A. Hosseini Yekani
Abstract
Introduction: stock market may play a significant role in financing food industries. Nowadays, people select an optimized portfolio with several shares instead of choosing only one in order to cope with the investment risk. For this, the systematic risk could be very important as the market is so fluctuating, ...
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Introduction: stock market may play a significant role in financing food industries. Nowadays, people select an optimized portfolio with several shares instead of choosing only one in order to cope with the investment risk. For this, the systematic risk could be very important as the market is so fluctuating, especially in Iran. So in this paper, we enter a constraint for systematic risk that helps investors in making decision.Materials and Methods: As we said, we want to enter systematic risk in the portfolio selection model. We use Extreme Downside Hedge (hereafter EDH) as the measure for the systematic risk of each company in the food industry. This measure relies on the argument that investors are able to hedge against extreme downside risk. The EDH can be estimated by regressing stock returns on a measure of market tail risk. We use Expected Tail Loss (ETL) to measure market tail risk. ETL is defined as the expected value of the loss given that the loss exceeds VaR. Then, the factor models are introduced to capture the systematic risk. In order to actively allocate the systematic risk, we use the definition of the marginal systematic risk introduced by Li et al (2018) to measure the systematic risk contribution of a risk contributor. First, we choose some variables as factors that affect the return of each company. After that, we calculate the covariance between factors and then make an equation that shows the systematic risk for each company. We apply our methodology to the return time series of 11 companies and the index for the food industry, all listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). The data covers the period from 2015 to 2019. Other variables include oil prices, gold prices and exchange rates extracted from the Economic and Financial Databank of Iran.Results and Discussion: The results show the Behshahr Ind, Glucosan, Kalber, Margarin, Pars Mino, Pegah Fars and Salemin have positive EDH. This means for these companies the stock returns are affected by volatility of the market, in other words as the volatility increases, the stock returns decrease. It should be noted that the higher the EDH is, the greater the impact is. Also, Gorji Biscuit, Mahram Mfg, Minoo Co and Azar Pegah have negative EDH, indicating the reverse impactability of these companies' returns from market volatility. The higher the EDH, the lower the companies' volatility, also the higher the negative EDH, the higher the market volatility. After calculating the factor model and entering it in the portfolio model, we obtained the optimized result. According to the results, Azar Pegah and Pars Mino, with 86% and 12% have the highest percentage of the optimal portfolio, while Kalber, Pegah Fars and Salemin altogether have 2% of the portfolio, respectively. As the results show, the largest share belongs to the Azar Pegah Company, which is also according to the EDH of the company, in fact, the results show the company whose shares have the highest negative impact from the market has entered to the model. The presence of four other companies in the portfolio given the positive EDH is due to their high average return rather than other companies, since we consider the return as a constraint in the model because of its importance in decision making. It is also worth noting that, the two companies, kalber and behshahr Ind, with the highest positive EDH are not in the optimal portfolio. In order to investigate the effect of systematic risk the model was estimated without considering this constraint. The results show, without systematic risk constraint the optimal portfolio has shifted to companies with higher return and lower risk. Thus, the results of this study indicate that with systematic risk, based on expectations, portfolios will shift to companies with lower impactability from market volatility on the one hand and higher returns on the other.Conclusion: Finally, the results of the study show, the systematic risk in the model shift the portfolio towards the stocks of companies that are less affected by market conditions. Therefore, given today's fluctuating conditions, it may be useful to apply a model that considers this part of the risk.
F. Kashiri Kolaei; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian
Abstract
Introduction: Selecting suitable crops for cultivation in a non-certain environment is considered as an important management topic in the agricultural sector. Despite the multiple application of probability theory in quantifying uncertainty in the form of risk programming, validity of this theory depends ...
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Introduction: Selecting suitable crops for cultivation in a non-certain environment is considered as an important management topic in the agricultural sector. Despite the multiple application of probability theory in quantifying uncertainty in the form of risk programming, validity of this theory depends on the existence of frequency for uncertain variable. For events that cannot be measured by frequency, the only solution is to use subjective judgment of persons in the domain field rather than historical data. Some experts have mistakenly considered subjective judgmentl as a subjective probability and thus used the probability theory to quantify subjective judgmental. But based on existing evidence, the quantification of subjective judgment should be carried out in another theory called the uncertainty theory. In uncertainty theory, in addition to using the belief degree rather than frequency for calculating mathematical moments, the expected value of multiplicative variables will be different with their corresponding relations in the probability theory. Considering these conditions and having in mind that the agricultural sector is always faced with uncertain variables such as price of crops and weather conditions like rainfall, in this study the revenue uncertainty measures of major crops in the Goharbaran region of Sari have been calculated and compared. There are different measures for uncertainty, which in the present study variance and Tail Value at Risk (TVaR) have been used.Materials and Methods: The first step in the application of the uncertainty theory is the elicitation of the belief degree or subjective judgments of the farmers about the crop's price and rainfall during the crop season. To elicit the uncertainty distribution of these variables based on the subjective judgments of farmers, 120 farmers were randomly selected in 2018. After eliciting the farmers' beliefs about uncertain rainfall and prices in the cdf method, it was necessary to select the number of belief degree which current practice was based on previous studies in this field. After calculating the above subjective judgments, while assuming linear, zigzag, normal and normal forms for uncertainty distribution, the parameters of each function were calculated using the least squares method. Among the forms of uncertainty distribution functions, the best form of the uncertainty distribution for each crop's price and rainfall was selected by comparing the RMSE indexes. Subsequently, by calculating a causal relationship between rainfall and crop yield, inverse uncertainty distribution of yield was also extracted. Given the inverse uncertainty distribution functions of crop price and yield, required parameters such as expected revenue, variance and TVaR of revenue at 95% confidence were calculated based on operational laws of uncertainty theory and probability theory. Eviews and Matlab software were used to estimate the yield response function and the uncertainty distribution functions, respectively.Results and Discussion: In this study, after collecting the belief degree of farmers in the studied area about different levels of price and rainfall, three groups of comprehensive beliefs about prices and rainfall were determined by goodness of fit test. Then, according to the relationship between crop yield and rainfall, the inverse function uncertainty distribution is also calculated. With the uncertainty distribution function of crops price and yield, the expected revenue, variance (standard deviation) and TVaR measure for revenue per hectare of crops were calculated and compared with the uncertainty theory as well as probability theory. Based on the results of this study, the amount of the above measures varied in different belief degree groups, which is due to differences in the uncertainty distribution parameters. Also, based on the results of this study in all groups of beliefs for all crops, the probability theory compared to the uncertainty theory has estimated the variance approximately more than 30% less, which is a significant result. In other words, applying probability theory to belief modeling will lead to erroneous and misleading results. In the case of the TVaR measure in binary multiplicative variable conditions, the use of probability theory and uncertainty theory in calculating TVaR does not yield conflicting results.Conclusion: The purpose of this study was to compare the results of applying probability theory for modeling belief degree rather than uncertainty theory in order to illustrate the necessity of using uncertainty theory in belief degree modeling. Studying the effect of probability theory in modeling the belief degree also suggests that the application of probability theory in the presence of two uncertain variables has no significant effect on expected values and TVaR but has a significant effect on variance size. Based on the results of the present study, assuming the binary multiplicative variable, in calculating higher mathematical moments such as variance, the results of probability theory and uncertainty theory make a considerable difference. This demonstrates the need to promote the uncertainty theory in belief degree modeling. In other words, basic training in the belief degree modeling method should be considered.
R. Zahedian Tejeneki; S.M. Mojaverian; S.A. Hosseini Yekani
Abstract
Introduction: The creation of agricultural processing and complementary industries is one of the ways to reduce poverty and unemployment in rural areas. Therefore, in order to encourage economic agents to create such industries, it is necessary to identify the affective factors on their decision. Information ...
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Introduction: The creation of agricultural processing and complementary industries is one of the ways to reduce poverty and unemployment in rural areas. Therefore, in order to encourage economic agents to create such industries, it is necessary to identify the affective factors on their decision. Information of the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Mazandaran province shows that the concentration of these industries in cities of Amol, Babol and Sari is more than other cities. In addition, the distribution rate of exploited processing industries is different from year to year. By considering the different rate of exploitation in years and locations, this question arises: Does location and time have any effect on exploitation of the agricultural processing and complementary industries in Mazandaran province? What is the contribution of these factors to the exploitation of processing industries?Methods: To answer research questions, the data of 2572 exploited and unexploited units are collected from the Agricultural Jihad Organization of Mazandaran province. The status of exploitation of processing industries is a qualitative variable with two values of zero and one. To determine the effect time in exploitation, the data are divided according to the Location and the commencing time of unit construction. The two-level Logit model is used for estimating model. In the estimated multilevel model, only intercept component is considered as a random component. Also, in this study, the Variance Partition Coefficient (Vpc) and the Likelihood ratio test is used to evaluate the multilevel modelResults: The value of the likelihood ratio statistic in commencing time of construction model is 330/72 that it indicates that two-level logit model is more suitable than the logit model for estimating data. The Variance Partition Coefficient shows that classifying processing and complementary industries based on the time of construction in Mazandaran province, can explain 28.37 percent of the observed deviation on average, which is not explained by independent variables in the model. While 1.2% of the observed deviation is explained by classifying the industries of Mazandaran province according to construction site. Also the share of location in the exploitation of the processing industries in Mazandaran province varies from 0.2 to 4.6%. In other words, the share of worst and the best location in terms of spatial characteristics are 0.2 and 4.6%, respectively. While the impact of the commencing time of construction in the exploitation of the processing industries of Mazandaran province varies from 19% to 40%. The results of the estimation model show that variables of cooperative ownership, planned capacity, unit area, establishment in the industrial parks, the amount of capital and type of activity effect on creation and exploitation the agricultural processing and complementary industries. Marginal effect of Horticultural activity variables, establishment in industrial parks and livestock activity, are more than other variables.Conclusion: The results show unlike the high emphasis on location factor in locational studies, the share of this factor in construction and exploitation of the processing and complementary industries varies from 0.2 to 2.4 percent. One of the most important reasons for low share of the location factor can be attributed to the right choice of place for construction by entrepreneurs. The results of the two-level logit model indicate that the start time of construction unit explains 28.37 percent of the variation in the exploitation of the agricultural processing in the Mazandaran province. The best and worst time to start construction is 42% and 19% respectively in the exploitation of the processing industries. The high share of start time shows that if an economic agent starts a single unit at different times, the chance of exploiting from the unit varies in different times. The variability of the conditions creates a concept that is called time rendering, in which the success of the construction of processing industries is a function of the conditions of the start date and not the characteristics of applicants for these designs. Therefore, it is recommended to condition creation of new units and exploiting from existing half-unit (including inflation rates, exchange rates, facility rates, facility quantity and rules) to be equal over time. Which this goal would be achieved by adopting to policies and doing activities that are matched with time, trustees and authorities of country.
K. Sam Daliri; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian
Abstract
Introduction: Agricultural products market in Iran is facing structural problems with non-competitive and inefficient conditions for trade of agricultural products, which leads to high price fluctuations for these products. Future markets as one of the risk sharing strategies would shift price risk to ...
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Introduction: Agricultural products market in Iran is facing structural problems with non-competitive and inefficient conditions for trade of agricultural products, which leads to high price fluctuations for these products. Future markets as one of the risk sharing strategies would shift price risk to brokers and intermediaries. So, future markets are considered as one of the best tools for reducing agricultural risk. Designing and implementing future contracts is time-consuming and costly. Therefore, in order to succeed in setting up such contracts, it is essential to pay attention to several main issues consisting selecting the correct commodity for exchange, determining the optimal specification of the future contracts of agricultural products, and the way of decision making and preferences of market participants.Materials and Methods: Despite the precise design of future contracts, future markets may fail after commencing due to lack of access for farmers, to use these tools. The purpose of this study is to predict future market acceptance by rice farmers in Sari.To achieve this goal, the positive Mathematical Programming Model (PMP) is used in the simulation of the traditional and future market within the framework of the GAMS software. All required data were derived from statistics provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Statistical Center of Iran during 2000 to 2015. The objective function of the model was a calibrated objective function which maximizes the actual quantities of farmers' production. But it should be noted that in solving this model, it was assumed that when the future market is launched the decision of the producers regarding the amount of production is not affected and only a part of their product will be offered in the future market, rather than in the traditional market, with the aim of reducing the price risk. Since this assumption does not validate in the actual operating conditions and it is expected that the producers' decision-making process would also be affected after entering the futures market and trading in this market.Results and Discussion: The results of simulation of the traditional market showed that the real average of the production, consumption, and net exports respectively were about 1.1663*10+5, 24074.390 and 1.4071*10+5 tone and the total profit of the producers of these products was about 3.7928*10+8 million Rials..Based on the results of simulation of future market, the real average of the production, Consumption and Net exports equals about 1.4349*10+5, 26199.05 and 1.1729*10+5 tone respectively and the total profit of the producers of these products is about 3.7958*10+8 million Rials. Thus it is expected that after commencing future market for agricultural products, 44% of all rice farmers would sell their product using future contracts.Therefore producers' decisions are not affected by the level of production and only a part of their product would be offered in the future market instead of the traditional market with the aim of reducing the price risk. In addition to comparing this market to the traditional market, the launch of the future market will increase the production, consumption and net exports about 1.9, 8.8 and 5.6 percent respectively.Conclusion: Due to the strategic condition of the rice product and the suitability of this product to enter the future market, it should be noted that in the process of optimal design of future contracts, without paying attention to all dimensions for launching the upcoming market, this market will not be successful. Therefore, in this study determination of the amount of participation by rice farmers before launching a successful future market for rice crops has been considered. The first stage were simulating conditions before the launch of the future market, named traditional market conditions of rice, and the average real values of production, consumption, net exports and total profit of the producers of this product were estimated in Sari city. Subsequently, with the goal of reducing the price risk, the conditions after launch of the future market were simulated that represent about half of rice producers will be participanting in the upcoming market. Base on the results of this study, it is suggested that the launch of futures markets and transfering process to the Agricultural Commodity Exchange would need cultural and extension courses to understand the benefits of entering this market.
S.M. Mojaverian; M. Taghizadeh; H. Amirnejad
Abstract
Introduction: Eliminating the deprivation of less developed areas has always been considered as a challenge to the realization of economic and social justice in the country that was not realized due to various reasons such as geographical isolation, imposed war and insecurities, inconsistencies and limiting ...
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Introduction: Eliminating the deprivation of less developed areas has always been considered as a challenge to the realization of economic and social justice in the country that was not realized due to various reasons such as geographical isolation, imposed war and insecurities, inconsistencies and limiting factors of investment security, and credits. The budget and credit law is one of the most important strategic tools to achieve the goals of each country. Credits are the most important tools for tracking policies and priorities, programing, and modifying activities. Therefore, the proper understanding of this tool and its principled application, as well as the optimal allocation method, is very important. In general, the governments are attempting to allocate the resources optimally and reduce inequalities through optimal programing. Accreditation is regarded as a strategic tool for implementing the government's duties in the economy which can provide a competent and accountable government and promote people's participation. The previous studies indicated that traditional budget allocation patterns are not efficient and appropriate leading to inequality and widening gap between regions. Using traditional accreditation patterns led to the acceleration of inappropriate allocation of spatial areas of population, facilities, infrastructure and investment in Iran. Optimality and efficiency are considered as the most important aspects of budgeting and accreditation, which can improve the financial performance of the government, decrease inequality and increase the level of development in the regions. In this regard, the researchers always attempted to provide a scientific approach based on mathematical optimization methods for the optimal and efficient allocation of financial and credit resources.
Materials and Methods: Goal programing approach was introduced by Charnes and Cooper (7). It was one of the approaches to multi-objective decision-making problems classified as mathematical optimization approaches with multiple targets. This model presented an optimal solution for optimizing the objective function in accordance with the applied constraints based on decision-making atmosphere and developed constraints.
In this method, a certain number was determined for the goal and the related target function was categorized. Finally, the answer minimizing the total weight of each target deviation than the goal determined for the same target was searched. In order to optimize the appropriation of agricultural credits in Kerman province, a goal planning model was designed and presented for achieving the goals. In this method, for each goal, a certain number is assigned to the ideal, then the target function is formulated. Finally, a search result is obtained that the total weight of the deviation of each goal is related to the ideal determined to minimize the same goal. The most important macroeconomic, social and environmental goals including 6 indices: comparative advantage, labor productivity, water productivity, land productivity, fertilizer productivity and mechanization coefficient, respectively were considered for the model. Fuzzy AHP method was used to determine the coefficient of importance of these indices in nine northern township of this province.
Results and Discussion: The results show that to achieve the common goals of different township of the province, it is necessary to allocate more credits to all township, especially Rafsanjan, Sirjan, Shahrbabak, Bardsir and Baft. The reason for such an outcome is the existence of capacity and potential of agriculture in these township. In Kerman, considering the available capacity and potential in agriculture, it is not necessary to use more credits. Thus, allocating credits to the county of Kerman is practically equal to carrying out the project at a higher cost. Nonetheless, other township can certainly and potentially attract more funding at a lower cost. It is worthwhile to say that to achieve the overall objectives of this study, goal programing models for reallocating agricultural credits to the field has been used. In other words, due to existing and available credits, we can plan purposefully and reprogram to achieve higher levels of macro goals in agriculture in Kerman province
Conclusions: Based on the results, the credits allocated in 2014 which was made by law was not balanced. Second, considering ideals, the allocation of available credits is not optimal. Comparing the six considered ideals, all ideals, except the mechanization coefficient ideal which is higher in this situation, were lower; therefore, the present allocation of credits is not optimal. Third, the ideals could be realized if there was a convergent allocation in the agricultural credits (a convergence allocation means using more capacities and potentials in more potent Townships). In other words, the capacities and capabilities of the agricultural activities in these Townships have remained useless due to the lack of awareness and incorrect allocation of credits. Therefore, these potentials can be used with the low cost in order to reduce regional inequality, and make a convergence in the production and employment in Kerman province if a balanced budget and programs agricultural credits related can be launched.
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 ...
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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.
S. Ahangari; S.M. Mojaverian; S.A. Hosseini Yekani
Abstract
Introduction: The market of agricultural products has always faced with a lot of limits and structural problems in Iran. The most part of these problems are related to non development of agricultural economy of our country and also traditional and inefficient structure of the market of agricultural products. ...
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Introduction: The market of agricultural products has always faced with a lot of limits and structural problems in Iran. The most part of these problems are related to non development of agricultural economy of our country and also traditional and inefficient structure of the market of agricultural products. According to non-transparency of market information, its traditional structure, as well as the risk of agricultural activity, it was expected that agricultural ring of Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) is effective in order to prevent the above mentioned obstacles; however from 2007 up to now, less than 1 percent of agricultural products arrived to this market and IME couldn’t have a leading role in the market of agricultural products. Although previous studies have examined some of the obstacles of IME development, but few researches have investigated choose of suitable products for trading across this market. In this study, it is tried to study the performance of agriculture ring of IME with focus on commodity selection criteria of such markets.
Materials and methods: In this study, two approaches of conventional taxonomy and weighted taxonomy are used in order to achieving the goals. In conventional taxonomy, component coefficients are constant and equal to one. But at the same weight taxonomy approach, data were weighted by Shannon entropy method. The required data of this study have been gathered from official websites of Statistical Center of Iran, Iranian National Standards Organization, Ministry of agriculture Jihad and Iran Mercantile Exchange. It is worth noting because of lack of access to updated data; the data of 2013 was used in this research.
Results and Discussion: Because of lack of data, 10 out of the 19 accepted commodities of IME were analyzed. The most obvious difference between the two methods of conventional and weighted taxonomy in this study is removal of pistachios in the conventional taxonomy. After obtaining the distance matrix, it was observed that pistachios have passed upper bounds and therefore, this product has been removed for the rest of the calculations. In the weighted taxonomy through Shannon entropy, none of the goods is removed. Finally, rice and maize identified as two top products on the list of most suitable commodities for trading at IME. Wheat and tea are also got the ranks of third and fourth respectively in conventional and weighted taxonomy approaches. According to the Iranian people's taste, good choice of rice as the first rank in this study was not surprising and is in line with reality. This product has an important role in satisfying the protein and calories of the world people. So, the more rice trades at IME, the more agricultural ring is successful. Corn, wheat and tea have also comparative importance across the studied agricultural commodities and expanding their trades at IME would have a major contribution in the success of agricultural ring.
Conclusions: As mentioned, rice has upper priority across the other studied commodities for trading at IME. After rice, corn, wheat and tea ranked second, third and fourth more suitable commodities. According to the results of this study, it is suggested that, factors such as the coefficient of importance and continuity in supply should consider as importance factors of commodity selection. According to the ranks of selected commodities, direct support of government could have an important role in the success of commodity in trading at IME. In order to successful entrance of agricultural commodities to IME, further support from the government is required. It is also proposed that free regional public educations are planned for small and large farmers to understand the agricultural ring of IME and its common standards and trading strategies. A package of incentive policies such as purchase guarantees in the absence of successful trading at IME and partial waivers on transporting costs to the warehouses is also proposed. Next to the contrary, it is also required to have some punishment policies so that in the absence of trading at IME for some farmers, financial supports such as loans or guaranteed purchase of those farmers would be far out of reach. Also decreasing the distance between IME and farmers through expanding the number of accepted warehouses in production areas by IME could ease the entrance of farmers to this market.
Z. Nematollahi; S.M. Mojaverian; M. Hosseinzadeh
Abstract
Introduction: Attention to rural development than urban development in the third world not because of the majority of the population in rural areas, but also because it is the final solution to the problem of urban unemployment and decreasing the population density metropolis, development and improvement ...
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Introduction: Attention to rural development than urban development in the third world not because of the majority of the population in rural areas, but also because it is the final solution to the problem of urban unemployment and decreasing the population density metropolis, development and improvement of the rural environment. Rural tourism potentially can be considered as fundamental approaches in sustainable rural development. This study, using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is trying to prioritize the factors that affecting rural tourism in Mazandaran province whit scientific and practical point of view, then the best rural areas of the province identify and rank according to experts.
Materials and Methods: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), introduced by Thomas Saaty (1980), is an effective tool for dealing with complex decision making and may aid the decision maker to set priorities and make the best decision. By reducing complex decisions to a series of pairwise comparisons, and then synthesizing the results, the AHP helps to capture both subjective and objective aspects of a decision. In addition, the AHP incorporates a useful technique for checking the consistency of the decision maker’s evaluations, thus reducing the bias in the decision-making process. The AHP can be implemented in three simple consecutive steps: 1) Computing the vector of criteria weights. 2) Computing the matrix of option scores. 3) Ranking the options.
Results and Discussion: The results and findings of this study showed that criteria related to infrastructure have the highest priority in terms of tourists and then cultural and social attractions, standards of facilities and tourist services and religious, historical and natural attractions is ranked. Incompatibility coefficient obtains less than 0.1, which indicates consistency in judgments. The results of prioritizing the following criteria shown; According to the provincial rural tourism security was the highest priority, weighing 0.077. The sanitary facilities of the path to the village, cleaning, environment and facilities, easy access road, holding traditional ceremonies and Accommodation in rural homes are ranked by the weight of 0.075, 0.066, 0.063, 0.063 and 0.062 in the second to sixth. The least important in rural tourism was the density of tourists and historical sites, by weight 0.022 and 0.037 respectively.
Then, to rank the target villages of rural tourism in the province, villages divided in the three villages, according to experts of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts, including East villages, Galoogah, Behshahr, Nekah, Miandorood and Sari, central villages, including Savadkuh, Ghaemshahr, Jouibar, Babol, Babolsar, Fereydunkenar, Mahmudabad, Amol and Nour and villages in the West, including, Ramsar, Tonekabon, Abasabad, Chalus and Noshahr. Then, priorities that the region was carried out by rural tourism are used to compare and rank the three villages. For this purpose, the opinions of 11 experts and scholars of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism has been used. Thus, options (the target villages) have been compared and ranked according to expert opinions to that rural tourism prioritizes. Finally, the final weight and options priority have been made based on expert opinion and according to the priorities set by tourists. Based on expert opinion and according to the priorities set by the tourists, the highest priority to tourism was in west of the province and villages in Central and eastern provinces are the next priorities respectively.
Conclusion: Rural tourism potentially can be considered as fundamental approaches in sustainable rural development. This study, using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is trying to prioritize the factors that affecting rural tourism in Mazandaran province. The results and findings of this study showed that criteria related to infrastructure have the highest priority in terms of tourists and then cultural and social attractions, standards of facilities and tourist services and religious, historical and natural attractions ranked. Based on expert opinion and according to the priorities set by the tourists, the highest priority to tourism was in west of the province and villages in Central and Eastern provinces respectively are the next priorities. Thus, according to the results, equipping tourist attractions to levels of health services, providing facilities and financial resources to equip and organize existing settlements is suggested.
T. Ranjbar; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian
Abstract
Introduction: Farming has a significant role in the economy of developing countries. The farming activities face with various dangerous, non-certainties and lots of problems due to natural disasters, price fluctuations in market place and social and behavioral conditions of farmers. Farmers encounter ...
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Introduction: Farming has a significant role in the economy of developing countries. The farming activities face with various dangerous, non-certainties and lots of problems due to natural disasters, price fluctuations in market place and social and behavioral conditions of farmers. Farmers encounter lots of risks in their farming decisions. Generally, there are three kinds of farmers including 1) risk-averse 2) risk-neutral and 3) risk-taker. The majority of previous studies have shown that the most of farmers are risk-averse, but with different rates of risk aversion.
Materials and Methods: Estimating the utility function is one way to quantify the risk. But while there is no certainty and decision making condition is risky, concept of “expected utility” will be considered instead of general concept of utility. In the present study, Direct Elicitation Utility Function (DEU) is used in order to calculating the degree of absolute risk aversion of farmers. In this approach, it is assumed that individual farmers are concerned about the variability of return of production decisions.
The utility function will be shown with U(Y) in which Y is the monetary gross margin of a farmer in specific period of time. The expected utility of the farmer is . The expected monetary margin will be defined with and certainty equivalent (CE) is the monetary margin that comes from the relation of . In DEU method, several mathematical forms of utility functions can be considered as the utility function of producers. Since in the form of negative exponential utility function, the absolute risk aversion coefficient is constant, in this study, the utility function of producers is , where shows the degree of absolute risk aversion. After calculation of farmers’ absolute risk aversion coefficients, the relationship between calculated coefficients and socio-economic characteristics of farmers (such as their age, farm size, family size, education and agricultural experience) were analyzed.
Results and Discussion: In compliance with relation and considering the negative exponential utility function, can be proved:
Where to are four probable levels of farmers’ gross revenues and to are the probabilities of these revenues. Utilizing DEU method, the rates of absolute risk aversion of farmers (high risk aversion, weak risk aversion and medium risk aversion) were calculated for 169 farmers in Sari-Goharbaran. According to the results, 41 farmers (24.2 percent) were weak risk averse, 81 farmers (47.9 percent) were medium risk averse and 47 farmers (27.8 percent) were high risk averse. Findings of the study showed that most of the farmers are medium risk averse. The second part of the findings showed that there is a significant relationship between farmers’ age, farm size, family size and farming experience and the rate of absolute risk aversion. As it was shown in the table 3, the age of farmers has positive relation with the degree of absolute risk aversion of farmers and the family size, farming experiences as well as farm size have negative relation with that degree. Also, according to the t-statistic, estimated coefficients were statistically meaningful at 95% and 99% which means if the farmer’s age increases by one year, then the degree of risk aversion of farmers rises by 95% confidence level, ceteris paribus. In addition, it can be stated that if the farming experiences increase by one year, the absolute risk aversion coefficient declined by 0.34 unit, by 99% certainty. Similarly, by increasing the number of family members and size of farms by one unit, the degree of risk aversion of farmers reduced to 0.37 and 0.98 unit respectively as well.
Conclusion: As the results advocate, the majority of farmers are in the class of average risk averse. Therefore, some measures should be taken to decrease the degree of risk aversion of farmers. This can carried out by the farmers as well as the agricultural sector policy makers. Utilizing the risk reduction techniques, such as crop diversification, insurance, establishing commodity derivatives and futures markets, farmers can reduce their risks. According to one of the results of this study, stating that whenever the farm sizes have risen, the degree of risk aversion has dropped, it is suggested that policy makers try to integrate lands in the agricultural sector. Also, as it is revealed that, by enhancing the experience of the farmers, their degree of risk aversion declines, so, through the educational and prompter classes, the farmers experience can be enhanced, despite the fact that education directly has no significant effect on the degree of risk aversion.
F. Kashiri Kolaei; S.A. Hosseini Yekani; S.M. Mojaverian
Abstract
Introduction: Market power is an important factor affecting welfare. Existence of market power on the purchase side reduces supplier welfare. However, existence of market power on the sales side reduces supplier welfare. Some believe that the agricultural market structure is a monopoly. In fact, most ...
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Introduction: Market power is an important factor affecting welfare. Existence of market power on the purchase side reduces supplier welfare. However, existence of market power on the sales side reduces supplier welfare. Some believe that the agricultural market structure is a monopoly. In fact, most of the agricultural products can be purchased by small firms and then delivered to consumers because they are perishable and need certain storage conditions. Thus, a monopoly condition is created in the market. In Iran, pistachios are amongst the agricultural products that can be important for investigating the market structure and for its effects on social welfare. This is due to the fact that the price of pistachios has fluctuated sharply because of many reasons such as the existence of major buyers such as the Rafsanjan Pistachios Producers Cooperative. Monopolistic firms determine the price that causes problems such as losing trade, creating extra profits for the seller and reducing consumer surplus. However, effective implementation of policies requires identification of market structure. In this context, in the present study for investigating the effects of Iran pistachios market structure on social welfare, the spatial equilibrium model was used which is based on maximizing net social payoff (NSP) and is able to consider the variety of market powers in suppliers and consumers.
Materials and Methods: One of the noteworthy features of the spatial equilibrium model is that it is able to examine the price equilibrium in each of the market power degrees. In this study, the conjectural variations parameter was used to consider the market power in the model. This index represents the reaction of firms to change the behavior of a particular firm. The final equations of Iran pistachios spatial equilibrium model can be seen in the following equations:
Max NSP = -
s.t - +
+
j
, , xfj,k, ti,j ≥0
Where NSP is the net social payoff, i and j respectively represent the pistachios supplier and consumer provinces and f represents the method of export of pistachios including by road, sea, air or railway. Vfjk is the yield per Kg of pistachios exports in different ways from the j-th province to the k-th country, Sfj is the pistachios exports capacity of the various ways from the j-th province, Xfjk represents the pistachios exports from the j-th province using the f-th way to the k-th country and mk is the imported pistachios of each country from Iran. Moreover, rij represents conjectural variation, and respectively represent pistachios supply and demand in the provinces j and i, and represent the total shipped pistachios from the i-th province to the j-th province and shipped pistachios for domestic consumption of j-th province, respectively. and respectively represent the demand and supply curve equations according to and . It should be noted that in the perfect competition market rij is equal to -1 while in a monopoly market it is equal to 0. In this study, the 2010 data were used for the calculation of the parameters. Also, for welfare investigating, the surplus of consumers and suppliers were calculated by the following equations:
Consumer surplus : CSj=
Producer surplus: PSi=
Results and Discussion: According to the results of this study, pistachios market structure is far from perfect competition in Iran and creating the perfect competition conditions leads to nearly a double increase in consumers’ welfare and a reduction in the suppliers’ welfare about 0.13%. In general, switching the Iran pistachios market structure has significant effects on domestic consumers but pistachios suppliers are less affected because they export more pistachios to foreign countries. Most of the changes in consumers’ welfare are made in the provinces that are mostly consumers of pistachios and have low or no pistachios production (such as Golestan, Hamedan, Ardebil, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kordestan and Markazi). In contrast, the lowest welfare changes are associated with the major pistachios supplier (such as Kerman, Yazd, Hormozgan and Sistan and Baluchestan).
Conclusion: Since pistachios are mainly exported and in fact the price of pistachios in the domestic market is higher than the price of Iranian pistachios in foreign markets, a significant increase in the price of pistachios has negative effects on domestic sales and consumers welfare. Since one of the main reasons for the high price of pistachios in Iran is related to market power and the existing monopoly, it is essential to establish certain policies to combat this monopoly. Pistachios exchange can be noted among the policies that are effective in changing the market structure. Also, creating conditions for the entry of new firms into the pistachios market is effective in reducing monopoly in it.
Keywords: Market Structure, Welfare, Spatial Equilibrium Model, Pistachios
S.M. Mojaverian; F. Rasouli; S.A. Hosseini Yekani
Abstract
One of the farmers' marketing decisions is how to sell their products to the market. They sell their products in different ways, for example pre-sell, local dealers and wholesalers,. This paper aims at investigating citrus distribution channels and evaluation of factors affecting the choice of each ...
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One of the farmers' marketing decisions is how to sell their products to the market. They sell their products in different ways, for example pre-sell, local dealers and wholesalers,. This paper aims at investigating citrus distribution channels and evaluation of factors affecting the choice of each channels by Mazandaran ‘s producers. The data was collected by simple random sampling method. 252 farmers from 15 cities were interviewed in 2011. In order to conduct the study, the Method of three-layer Nested Logit model was used. The estimated results showed that the variables of the garden distance from nearest town, gardener experience, selling time, marketing costs, product type and dominant style of selling in the region are crucial factors in selecting the distribution channel. Each of these variables had different effect on selecting in each selling channels, Nevertheless, the variables of selling time and product type were of a greater importance.