Agricultural Economics
H. Naruei; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani; M. Salarpour; A. Keikha; R. Esfanjari Kenari
Abstract
The negative and destructive impact of climate change on the efficiency and productivity of agricultural inputs has been demonstrated in many regions of the world, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. In this context, the adoption of innovative strategies to increase farmers' flexibility and adaptability ...
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The negative and destructive impact of climate change on the efficiency and productivity of agricultural inputs has been demonstrated in many regions of the world, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas. In this context, the adoption of innovative strategies to increase farmers' flexibility and adaptability to climate change has increased. Hence, understanding the impact of climate adaptation strategies on agricultural efficiency and yields is crucial. This study examined the effects of climate change adaptation strategies, input utilization, and external factors beyond farmers' control on technical efficiency using the Endogenous Modified Stochastic Frontier (EMSF) model. Data were collected from 265 questionnaires distributed among wheat farmers during the 2022-2023 cultivation period, using a stratified random sampling approach. The climate adaptation strategy index was formulated using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique. The PCA revealed that changes in farm size (0.812), adaptation of conservation tillage (0.797), and adjustments in planting dates (0.619) were the most influential factors. Conversely, rainwater harvesting (0.219) and biofertilizer application (0.327) emerged as the adaptation strategies with the lowest factor loadings among farmers. In this study, the average technical efficiency of wheat farmers was calculated to be 82%. The model estimation results showed that labor input, chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, water, and machinery significantly and positively contribute to wheat production efficiency. Additionally, the implementation of climate adaptation strategies by farmers reduces technical inefficiency. Variables such as education level, farming experience, access to climate information, and access to credit also effectively reduce technical inefficiency.
Agricultural Economics
H. Sakhdari; S. Ziaee; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani; H. Mohammadi
Abstract
Khorasan Razavi Province suffers from the most critical groundwater resources in Iran, i.e. the groundwater decline has reached 1 m; 34 out of 37 water plains are banned in Khorasan Razavi Province. Recently, Mashhad plain has been fighting with the crisis of drought and water scarcity. Illegal harvesting ...
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Khorasan Razavi Province suffers from the most critical groundwater resources in Iran, i.e. the groundwater decline has reached 1 m; 34 out of 37 water plains are banned in Khorasan Razavi Province. Recently, Mashhad plain has been fighting with the crisis of drought and water scarcity. Illegal harvesting from groundwater resources and the warming trend caused by change in climate have exacerbated the crisis. Comprehensive water resources management, assuming the complicated nature of water-related issues, rapid growth of population, water requirement for a variety of purposes, and limited water resources, requires novel methods to stack up technical, economic, environmental, social, and logical perspectives in an integrated forum. One of the tools for comprehensive water resources management is utilizing hydro-economic models to simulate the present status of drainage basins and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios and policies. The current study used a hydro-economic model to simulate the hydrological status of Mashhad plain and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios. Then, the agent-based model (ABM) was used in order to reach an agreement with stakeholders on executing different conservation scenarios. The hydro-economic model results revealed that reducing the water demand of the agricultural sector and, as a result, surface and groundwater consumption is possible through following adaptation scenarios. Implementing various adaptation scenarios may alter the present cultivation pattern. Moreover, the ABM results showed a significant difference between the volume of available water, due to the execution of strategies, and water demand, bringing about the lack of farmers’ cooperation regarding the implementation of conservation scenarios. However, through applying some incentive policies, a number of representative farmers may agree to pursue adaptation scenarios.
M. Jamshidifar; M. Salarpour; M. Sabouhi; H. Mehrabi Boshrabadi; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani
Abstract
Introduction: Poultry is now one of the largest industry in Khorasan Razavi province and chicken meat has an important role in household food needs. Developing appropriate studies that lead to strategies for handling poultry products to fulfil consumers’ demand have become quite a challenging issue ...
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Introduction: Poultry is now one of the largest industry in Khorasan Razavi province and chicken meat has an important role in household food needs. Developing appropriate studies that lead to strategies for handling poultry products to fulfil consumers’ demand have become quite a challenging issue especially due to crisis situation. Supply chain system in this paper means a chain of processes from the rearing farm to the final consumer of the finished product and provide useful operational analysis of system behaviors for managing supply chain under demand uncertainties and production disruptions.
Materials and Methods: In this paper, a system dynamics model is applied for studying the behavior of the chicken meat supply chain threatened by bird flu, demand fluctuation and Government (State Livestock Affairs Logistics) intervention under the Vensim environment. The model is an extended version of real-life practice which involves producers, consumers and government. A causal loop diagram used to show how interrelated variables affect one another and connect together. This important diagram can handle assumptions regarding facing various calamities and disaster which is an integral part of the poultry industry. This dynamic model development can track possible disasters in time to prepare facing them. To cover more possibility, we propose three scenarios of different levels for demand and present of loss bird. To find out the most efficient rearing rate in crisis situation, demand fluctuation and loss bird rate are considered simultaneously in scenarios. Importance of chicken meat strategic reserve for Norouz lead us to impose a constraint for government purchasing and expenditure during the last month of simulation. Operations during a 120 days are simulated and a what-if analysis performed to study the model stability under uncertainty environment.
Results and Discussion: As a starting position no bird losses rate and demand problems included and supply chain fills all of demands without purchase chicken meat from external markets. The equilibrium was reached when the available live chicken level equals to 382 (ton/day). Results showed that without changing demand levels for achieving supply chain stability, the system need to import chicken meat for entire of the crisis period and government intervenes in market to ensure remunerative prices for producers and affordable prices for consumers. In sanitary crisis situation, decreasing demand can reduce the external purchases and unexpected costs but it decreases net income of producers simultaneously. In all scenarios external purchases and unexpected government purchasing are zero when the demand decreasing level is maximum. The simulation results showed that 10 percent of domestic farms affecting by Bird flu can increase the amount of external purchases up to 40 (ton/day) and give rise to unexpected government expenditures by 3360 (million Rial). It is evident from the model that slaughtering all reared chicken (available live chickens) after exactly 42 days can give number of benefits to the industry and profit is maximize in the simulated behavior for this scenario test. Reduction of rearing time can increase the amount of available chicken meat and net income of producer by 18 percent. In contrast, an increase of 15 days in rearing time can considerably reduce net income of producer by 30 percent. This means that a reduction of rearing time (standardization of poultry size and weight) can be a solution to improve poultry industry in Khorasan Razavi province. Income of producer is sensitive to the crisis and it is reduced up to 27 percent at peak of bird loss rate. Poultry producers are suffering from economic loss due to management, bird disease and transportation stress. These factors not only affects the quantity but also decrease the quality of chicken meat. On the other hand, 5 percent decrease in slaughterhouse and transportation mortalities immediately leads to an increase in supply chain incomes and the level of chicken meat inventory. According to the result, with management of chicken transportation, slaughter and rearing time, even in the worst scenario when the loss bird rate was maximum, it is possible to fulfil demand with domestic production capacity.
Conclusions: The supply chain is affected by endogenous and exogenous factors such as government intervention. Therefore an establishment of an integrated system between rearing farms, transport system, slaughterhouse and government purchasing can be helpful especially in crisis period. Poultry industry can integrate complete supply chain network so decision-makers can assist calculating the economic returns and reduce the risk. Moreover, producers will be able to compete with the other provinces and global markets as well as reducing their operational costs. Future research can focus on the different variables and study poultry wastes of processing by-products on the poultry industry in Khorasan Razavi province.
F. Bahrami Mehneh; A.A. Keikha; M. Sabouhi; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani
Abstract
Introduction: Water scarcity has become a global issue due to its direct relationship with food security. For this reason, the need for the long-term sustainable use of water necessitates the application of effective strategies. In this regard, strategic programs are utilized in water resource management ...
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Introduction: Water scarcity has become a global issue due to its direct relationship with food security. For this reason, the need for the long-term sustainable use of water necessitates the application of effective strategies. In this regard, strategic programs are utilized in water resource management and agricultural policies in order to increase self-sufficiency, to reduce the food gap, to decrease the cultivation of water based products, to maximize the economic value of water and to guarantee efficient allocation of resources among different activities in most parts of the world. The main objective of this study is to develop a decision support system to achieve the above-mentioned policies and strategies in the ten agricultural and ecological zones in the country according to the amount of virtual water for crop production.
Data and Methods: The decision support system seeks to introduce an optimum pattern and to investigate the current status of water resources and determine the food gap and virtual economic value by means of a linear programming model. It intends also to determine the return on investment of crop production in each region. Our goal of this research is to maximize the value of virtual water with respect to land and availability of surface water and groundwater constraints. We also consider socio-economic constraints to ensure minimum and maximum area under cultivation in every region. In order to achieve accurate results, the social value of goods and inputs has been used in the model. In determining the social value of all goods and tradable inputs, prices of the border with a shadow exchange rate are used. Given the importance of addressing the amount of water used to produce goods, the virtual water content of products on maximizing the economic value of water is used in this study. Due to climatic conditions and consequently the performance of production in different regions, we use water requirement to crop yield ratio for every region for calculation of the virtual water content of a product. In this study, water valuation was based on value added inputs, while social values were used as criteria in its calculation. The data are gathered from the database of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Energy and the relevant agencies in the region. We used the 32.5 Edition of GAMS software to estimate the proposed model.
Results: The results show the amount of water used by farmers to grow major crops in different regions in 1392, was 19 billion cubic meters. Central Zagros with 3.8 billion cubic meters and the Central dry zone with 1.2 billion cubic meters have respectively the largest and smallest water consumption. The results also showed the greatest change and lowest change in economic value of irrigation water related to wet wheat and wet cotton respectively. The regional view, the greatest and the lowest value of water refers respectively to the South Zagros region and the region of Khuzestan. Research results show that the pattern of demand reduces the food gap through increased cultivation of some strategic products. In order to reduce the food gap, one of the most important strategies is the increased cultivation of the wheat crop.
Conclusion: This study provided a cultivating pattern in order to meet two important goals: cutting water consumption and reducing the food gap by increasing the cultivation of strategic crops such as wheat. In fact, by implementing appropriate Logistic policies, the government and politicians can achieve the aforementioned objectives by diversifying the current cultivation pattern in the desired region in compliance with environmental, economic and food security and health security considerations. The economic value of irrigation water and reduction of the area under cultivation is also a consequence of the proposed program. Instead of providing constant value in all regions of a country, providing an optimal cultivation pattern while considering the exact value of virtual water is a better policy. The proposed cropping pattern reduces Food gap and the area of water-based production cultivation and reduces water consumption, which can be used for producing strategic crops. The proposed cropping pattern increases the economic value of water by 20%. Indeed, it suggests that acreage crops such as wheat, pulses, and oil seeds are increased and rice and sugar beet cultivation is decreased. The main objective of the proposed cropping patterns to reduce the food gap and increase the welfare of consumers.
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 ...
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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.
S.M. Fahimifard; M. Salarpour; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani; H. Mohammadi; M. Sanaei
Abstract
Introduction: Stock shortage is one of the development impasses in developing countries and trough it the agriculture sector has faced with the most limitation. The share of Iran’s agricultural sector from total investments after the Islamic revolution (1979) has been just 5.5 percent. This fact causes ...
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Introduction: Stock shortage is one of the development impasses in developing countries and trough it the agriculture sector has faced with the most limitation. The share of Iran’s agricultural sector from total investments after the Islamic revolution (1979) has been just 5.5 percent. This fact causes low efficiency in Iran’s agriculture sector. For instance per each 1 cubic meter of water in Iran’s agriculture sector, less that 1 kilogram dry food produced and each Iranian farmer achieves less annual income and has less mechanization in comparison with similar countries in Iran’s 1404 perspective document. Therefore, it is clear that increasing investment in agriculture sector, optimize the budget allocation for this sector is mandatory however has not been adequately and scientifically revised until now. Thus, in this research optimum budget allocation of Iran- Khorasan Razavi province agriculture sector was modeled.
Materials and Methods: In order to model the optimum budget allocation of Khorasan Razavi province’s agriculture sector at first optimum budget allocation between agriculture programs was modeled with compounding three indexes: 1. Analyzing the priorities of Khorasan Razavi province’s agriculture sector experts with the application of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), 2. The average share of agriculture sector programs from 4th country’s development program for Khorasan Razavi province’s agriculture sector, and 3.The average share of agriculture sector programs from 5th country’s development program for Khorasan Razavi province’s agriculture sector. Then, using Delphi technique potential indexes of each program was determined. After that, determined potential indexes were weighted using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and finally, using numerical taxonomy model to optimize allocation of the program’s budget between cities based on two scenarios. Required data, also was gathered from the budget and planning office of Khorasan Razavi’s Jahad Keshavarzi organization during 2006-2015. They were collected through distributed binary comparison questionnaires related to AHP model between Khorasan Razavi’s agricultural experts in 2015 and distributed questionnaires related to Delphi technique between Khorasan Razavi’s agricultural experts in 2015. Indeed, Super decision and Taxonomy software were applied to analyze the gathered data.
Results and Discussion: Results of budget allocation of Khorasan Razavi province’s agriculture sector using three mentioned indexes showed that between 8 programs, P1 and P6 have the most and least share, respectively. The results of the Delphi technique for determining potential indexes of between cities budget allocation of agriculture sector programs indicated that totally there are 62 indexes. Findings of between cities budget allocation of agriculture sector programs showed that for budget allocation of P1 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Kalat and Davarzan cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P2 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Bardaskan and Kalat cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P3 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Mashhad and Joghatai cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P4 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Jovein and Torghabe Shandiz cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P5 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Chenaran and Neishabour cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P6 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Mashhad and Khoushab cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. For budget allocation of P7 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Neishabour and Saleh Abad cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa. Finally, for budget allocation of P8 based on 1 and 2 scenarios, Neishabour and Khoushab cities have the most and least share, respectively and vice versa.
Conclusion: The study concludes that the agriculture sector budget of Khorasan Razavi Province’s has not been allocated optimally. Therefore, paying attention to this fact that agriculture sector budget allocation which carried out previously between various programs, have been provided different instructions for opposite ideas always caused to challenge between beneficiary groups. This study provided a scientific and comprehensive model for budget allocation of agriculture sector between programs and cities using agriculture experts, and can be suggested to governors and Jahad Keshavarzi organizations to apply the results.
A. Parhizkari; M. Sabuhi; M. Ahmadpour Borazjani; H. Badi Barzin
Abstract
Considering that agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water, presenting integrated management for water resources and formulating effective policies to increase water productivity in this sector is essential. Therefore, using economic modeling , this study simulated the farmers’ responses ...
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Considering that agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water, presenting integrated management for water resources and formulating effective policies to increase water productivity in this sector is essential. Therefore, using economic modeling , this study simulated the farmers’ responses to irrigation water pricing and rationing policies in Zabol city. To achieve the study purpose, the State Wide Agricultural Production Model and Positive Mathematical Programming were applied. The required data for the years 2010-2011 was collected by completing questionnaires and collecting data sets from the relevant agencies of Zabol city in personal attendance. The results showed that imposing irrigation water pricing and rationing policies in Zabol city leads to a reduction in the total cultivated area by 9/54 and 5/14 percent and a reduction in the water consumption by 6/23 and 7/01 percent, compared to the base year. Ultimately, irrigation water rationing policy, considering frugality of 18/9 million m3 of water, as the appropriate solution for the sustainability of water resources of Zabol city was proposed.