دکتر محمد قربانی

Designing incentive packages for the implementation of the cultivation pattern by farmers is one of the policies of the agricultural sector which plays an important role in providing food security. This study was conducted in Razavi Khorasan province as one of the hubs of producing agricultural products in Iran. To identify the required incentives and to design incentive packages, the Delphi method and the opinions of farmers and agricultural experts were used in three stages. In order to carry out this research, the opinions of 34 specialists and experts in the field of agriculture and 158 agricultural operators of the province were used to design incentive packages. According to the obtained results, three incentive packages including "pricing policy for basic agricultural products and guaranteed purchase", "management-infrastructure" and "subsidy" were designed and provided to farmers, which were chosen by 41.1, 32.9 and 26 percent of farmers, respectively. Therefore, it can be concluded that farmers are risk-averse and the government can take a big step in operationalizing the crop pattern by farmers with the policy of guaranteed purchase in proportion to the market balance for the stability and increase of farmers' income as well as creating balance in production and attention to the required infrastructure.

Agricultural activities are always associated with risks for farmers due to dealing with living organisms. In these activities, all kinds of natural, social, and economic risks go hand in hand and provide vulnerable situations for producers. The result of this fragility and vulnerability causes instability in incomes. This research aims to determine the identification and prioritization of the parameters of agricultural contracts using the AHP hierarchical analysis process combination model and similarity to the ideal option of TOPSIS in Razavi Khorasan province through a researcher-made questionnaire based on the studies and research done, from 13 experts and experts. In the field of agriculture, a contract was made that was selected based on their expertise. In this research, 2 criteria and 14 options were considered; And TOPSIS and AHP methods were used to weight the criteria, identify and prioritize agricultural contract parameters. The results showed that the criterion weight for promoting farmers' participation in contract agriculture is 0.692 and the criterion weight for helping food security and increasing production in contract agriculture is 0.308; Also, based on the weights obtained for the criteria and based on the TOPSIS prioritization method, among the parameters of agricultural contracts, the highest rank was related to holding training classes and technical consultation, and the lowest rank was related to the type of contract (bilateral-multilateral). Based on the results obtained from this research, it is suggested that the agricultural jihad organization or the private sector should consider parameters such as the holding of training classes and technical advice, the existence of trading options, the type of contract (written-verbal), the presence or absence of the requirement to determine the degree. pay attention to the quality, duration of the contract, type of contract (direct-intermediate), supply of inputs; In this case, it is expected that the participation of farmers in contract farming will increase.

In Iran, due to the progress made in the field of agriculture and as a result, by increasing the share of the supply of agricultural products to the consumer market from the total production of products, understanding the market of agricultural products in Iran and trying to provide appropriate solutions and corrections. The structure of the market of agricultural products is essential. Also, due to the importance of dates in the non-oil export basket and the cost basket of households, as well as the set of issues and problems related to marketing, including many relationships, the large distance between the producer and the consumer, the relativity of the market process and the distribution network industry in terms of structure. guidance and communication, it is necessary to analyze the set of this system in a scientific framework. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine the elements of the structure, behavior, and performance of the date market in Iran with the Three-Stage Least Squares Approach of The Error Component using the three-stage error component least squares (G3SLS) approach based on panel data during the period from 2011 to 2019. According to the market structure hypothesis, in the equation of the total share of dates (MS); the variables of the investment amount in circulation, total capital, asset turnover ratio, The variables of additional processing amount, additional packaging date, and amount of investment in circulation, asset turnover ratio, and profit have a positive and significant effect on the asset return ratio. Therefore, according to the results obtained from the research, the political recommendation is that considering the negative relationship between Iran's competitive advantage and the import advantage of European countries, policies to maintain the share, influence, and competition in the high-income European market, which also has lower transportation costs, to be designed.

The agricultural products insurance is an efficient way to reduce the risk of activity in this field, which seeks to improve the economic productivity of the agricultural sector by encouraging farmers to insure their products. The success of it also depends on the farmers' willingness to produce insurance. Considering the importance of insurance in reducing risk and stabilizing the income of farmers, this research has investigated the factors affecting the decreased demand for wheat in Torbat Jam city. This research was conducted by completing questionnaire and sampling method available from 198 people from all wheat farmers of this city in the year of 2020-2021 and it was analyzed using logit model. Based on the information obtained from the Agricultural Jahad of this city, 72 of the farmers in the sample have taken out insurance for the wheat. The results of the showed that factors including the level of education, the area under cultivation of wheat, the years of history of the farmer facing the risk, the timely payment of compensation by the agricultural products insurance fund and the completeness of the level of coverage have a negative effect, and on the other hand, the variables of the amount of income from the sale of wheat, having sources of income other and the distance to the insurance office from the farmers' residence have a positive effect on not applying for insurance by the wheat farmers of this city. it is appropriate to the classification of agricultural risks according to regions.

Having a plan of crop pattern suitable to climatic conditions ensures the sustainability of agricultural production and food security and makes the capacities of each region be used properly, this possibility can be investigated and implemented in the form of policy packages and by designing targeted incentive packages and According to the needs of the farmers and then providing the packages to the farmers, they will stimulate the farmers to implement the cultivation pattern, which can play an effective role in the operationalization of the cultivation pattern in the fields by the farmers. The purpose of this study is Investigating the influencing factors on the willingness of farmers to accept incentive packages for operationalizing the crop pattern proposed by the government in Khorasan Razavi province.In this study, 283 farmers were selected using the available non-random sampling method, and the necessary data and information were collected using a questionnaire and face-to-face interview. Also, using multinomial logit regression, the purpose of the study was examined.The results of the research showed that the variables of The number of household labour, market risk, financial risk, attitude, perceived behavioral control and membership in social institutions have a positive and significant effect on the selection of the management-infrastructure package and the variables of Amount of non-agricultural income, medium-scale farmers, subjective norms, financing willingness, marital status and Enough access to Water have a negative and significant effect. Also, variables of place of residence, The number of household labour, participation and cooperation with agricultural jihad, attitude, perceived behavioral control, cultural factors and membership in social institutions have a positive and significant effect and variables of large-scale farmers, weather risk, subjective norms, behavioral intention, satisfaction with The policy and objectives of the agricultural jihad and the activity and participation in the farmers' group have a negative and significant effect on the choice of a subsidy package.

The purpose of the present study is to design of the economic valuation model of Iranian basketball clubs was a choice experiment approach.

This study is analytical and descriptive. The statistical population of the study included four groups of faculty members, club managers, coaches and experts and, basketball veterans. Then, from each group according to the existing population, the sample was selected by a proportional distribution method. Therefore, in this study, 85 people were selected as a sample, which included 19 faculty members, 11 club managers, 23 coaches and, 32 basketball experts and veterans, respectively. For statistical analysis and also to present the proposed model of intangible assets of Iran basketball Club, Chioce experiment test and conditional logit and STATA13 software were used.

The results of economic valuation showed six models for valuation. Based on comments provided by the experts, sport federation officials, and basketball champion league, the fourth pattern was more practical than the other ones. The factor bearing the most amount of value in this pattern was related to the fans of a club with an acceptance inclination index of WTA: 2130673014 Tomans and the most amount of value for the inclination to pay indices was related to awarding one’s shirt to the fans with WPT of 1984774741 Tomans.

Considering the results of the present study, it is suggested that sports officials and champion leagues use the suggested model nonmarket assets of basketball clubs.

Social risks are another specific phenomenon in the agricultural sector. . In the present study, in order to identify ethical risks and adverse selection in Khorasan Razavi irrigated wheat insurance, a simultaneous equation system model . The sample size was determined by proportional sampling Collected. The results indicate that insured farming in warm-temperate and cold-temperate regions have not reduced inputs for production per unit area of wheat, indicating a lack of ethical risk in these areas. In contrast, the results from the cold zone show that the insured beneficiaries has reduced the consumption of inputs in the area, indicating a moral hazard in this area. Also, the results of the test of the hypothesis of constant returns to scale versus the decreasing or increasing return hypothesis for variable inputs show the absence of adverse selection. Therefore, it is suggested that appropriate training and extension classes be held for farmers in order to better understand the time and manner of using chemical fertilizers and the appropriate time for irrigation.

Economic growth in a country is always one of the important goals and achieving this goal requires growth in all areas related to that economy. Achieving this goal is possible when the competitiveness of the regions increases and its economic performance improves and economic growth in all economic regions tends to a steady trend and becomes so-called convergent. One of the factors that have been considered in recent years as a factor explaining economic growth is the proximity and spatial position of regions. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to investigate the effects of spatial urban spillover on economic growth of the provinces and also the role of urbanization on the rate of convergence of provinces.

One of the important issues in urban economics is how the relationship between urban population growth and economic growth. In this regard, Lefebvre (2009) considered the economic structure and economic growth. According to Bertinley and Black (2004), the channels through which urbanization affects economic growth: First, cities play an important role in the economies and societies of developed and developing countries by providing opportunities for people to benefit from educational, employment and health services in the economic structure of the city.
Second, urbanization allows businesses to take advantage of economies of scale due to externalities, and this makes it possible for companies to specialize and reduce transaction costs. Third, urbanization is a major factor in entrepreneurship. The concentration of population and businesses in cities makes the urban population easily finance their idea and provide the conditions for promoting business ideas and access to local markets with higher consumer density, and ultimately there are spillover effects, these positive external effects of development. Cities in neighboring areas are identified through migration and active interaction. Therefore, according to these theories, there is no separate region and the growth of each region is affected by the growth of the surrounding regions. Thus, despite the effects of urban spillovers, the economic growth of the provinces is converging. In the economic literature, the main idea of ​​convergence is that the lower per capita economy experiences a higher growth rate than the higher per capita economy.

Econometric researchers believe that due to the impact of economic performance of an area on neighboring areas, if the spatial dependence between observations and these effects are not taken into account, the conventional estimation method will be biased and the effect of factors trying to study them will be erroneous. Since the variables used in this study have a spatial aspect and are affected by spatial correlation, and considering that the main purpose of this study is to analyze the role of urbanization in the spatial convergence rate of the provinces, the spatial econometric model is used. Consider each other's observations and the effect of changes in dependent and explanatory variables on neighboring observations. Spatial growth models explicitly include spatial factors in growth models. These models pay more attention to spillovers and seek to find the main drivers of long-term growth in space.

Before estimation of spatial models, to emphasize the need to use spatial patterns in this study, diagnostic tests were performed to estimate the pattern as panel data. As stated in the methodology section, the research model is estimated in three stages. In the first stage, the absolute convergence model is estimated in which there is no urbanization variable. In the second stage, to evaluate the effect of urbanization on convergence and its speed, conditional beta convergence is estimated in terms of urbanization effects, and in the third stage, the space camera model is estimated in terms of urban spatial effects. In absolute beta convergence, it is assumed that the model parameters are the same and the only cause of changes in the economic growth of the provinces are their initial values. Another important point that should be considered before estimation is the spatial effects test that was analyzed in the above sections and therefore the estimation patterns should be estimated in terms of these spatial effects. The results of the first stage estimate show that the sign of convergence coefficient is negative and significant and indicates the existence of absolute beta convergence, i.e., provinces with lower per capita production have faster economic growth than provinces with higher per capita production. Convergence rate is estimated to be 0.0563, This coefficient indicates that about 5.63% of the gap between the initial state of per capita production and the state of equilibrium with its stability is eliminated annually. With the introduction of the urbanization variable into the model, the use of absolute beta convergence is no longer correct because economic growth is also affected by other factors such as urbanization, so in this case conditional beta convergence is raised. In the second stage, the results show that the inclusion of the urbanization variable in the convergence equation leads to a decrease in the estimated coefficient for the initial per capita production variable. In other words, the convergence rate has increased by 1.45% compared to the previous case. The positive effect of urbanization on the convergence of provinces.
Finally, the general convergence hypothesis that other parameters are not constant is investigated and the conditional beta convergence is estimated using the space camera model in terms of other effective variables. The results indicate that in this case, each province has an average rate of 14.29% are moving towards sustainable growth. Therefore, it can be claimed that in terms of direct effects and spatial effects (spillover) of urbanization, the rate of convergence increases.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the economic convergence among the provinces of Iran during the years 2005 to 2017. For this purpose, two types of convergence, absolute beta and conditional beta, were investigated by using spatial growth models. Therefore, first, by performing Moran I test and LM test, the necessity of using spatial models was confirmed. In the present study, in order to better explain the role of urbanization in the rate of convergence of the provinces, the research model was examined in three stages. The results of all models show that the provinces of the country are economically convergent and the existence of absolute and conditional beta convergence between the provinces is confirmed, i.e., less developed provinces have a higher economic growth rate and provinces that are stable from equilibrium. They are more distant; they have a higher economic growth rate. Considering the significance and positive effects of urban spatial spillover, it can be concluded that increasing the interaction and return of citizens to neighboring areas in the provinces due to the effects of the spillover will cause economic growth in neighboring provinces and this will increase the speed of economic convergence.

Today, the valuation of sport events has become one of the most popular fields of research in the world and the purpose of this study was economic valuation of with Chookheh wrestling sport event.

This study was applied in terms of objectives and a descriptive survey in terms of data collection which was conducted as a field study. The research population in choice experiment section consisted of all residents of the city of Esfarayen, directors, deputies and experts from the Sports and Youth General Directorates of Northern Khorasan Province, The Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism General Directorates of Northern Khorasan Province, Sports and Youth Offices in Northern Khorasan Province, Wrestling Committees of Northern Khorasan Province, Rural Sports and Local Native Games Committees in Northern Khorasan Province, totally 270 person were randomly selected as the sample. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the demographic characteristics and conditional logit model was used to analyze the data and STATA15 software was used to analyze the data.

The results of the choice experiment showed that the highest willingness to pay for environmental problems (50726 Tomans), improving the image of the tourist destination (49889 Tomans), strengthening moral and spiritual values (48082 Tomans), social problems (34480 Tomans), Political-institutional linkage (10902 Tomans), growth and development of tourism (9804 Tomans) and economic growth and development and infrastructure (6259 Tomans).

The findings showed that many attributes play different roles in determining the economic valuation of a with Chookheh wrestling sport event that the officials and organizers of this event need to pay special attention to these items.

Innovation is one of the factors that drive economic growth and production by improving labor productivity, dynamics in industries, and determining economic success. Science and Technological Parks play an important role in the technological development of a country by significantly increasing economic growth. So, knowledge-based companies are known as one of the main factors for accelerating production and achieving economic resilience goals.

In this study, knowledge-based and agricultural companies located in the Center for Agricultural Technology Development, Natural Resources and Food Industries and Technology Development Center of Gonabad, Neishabour, and Torbat-e Heydarieh have been studied. The method of data collection in this research was by census method and through a questionnaire. The required data of 5 companies were collected via email, 3 companies were collected via telegram, and 39 questionnaires were completed through face-to-face distribution. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis. The software used in this study was Excel and Stata.

Based on the obtained results, factors such as financial support and business advice were the most important requirements for knowledge-based companies. Also, the most important weaknesses in institutional sectors were lack of financial resources in the financial sector, inability to introduce the product and international marketing in the marketing sector, and lack of proper and timely execution of upstream documents were among the weaknesses in the institutional sector. In contrast, personal capital and product innovation were among the strengths of knowledge-based companies and agricultural technology. Furthermore, the most important threats for these companies were price fluctuations, uncertainty due to foreign currency policies, low level or nonawareness of legal regulations, and long-term process to obtain official permissions. Also, the exclusivity of the product was declared the most important opportunity for companies. The priority of these companies was related to future strategies, export, and focus on foreign markets and attracting investors.

Finally, it is suggested that due to the low efficiency of knowledge-based companies in terms of job creation, the following should be on the agenda: effective entry of universities in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, drafting an innovation system document, and directing research activities towards knowledge foundations in universities. Also, to increase the employment of agricultural graduates, it is suggested that arrangements be made so that the employment of these people in knowledge-based companies will lead to the establishment of facilities such as providing free insurance coverage for these companies. Knowledge-based companies and agricultural technology need a management-consulting package in the field of marketing and marketing of products, legal and financial products in order to have a stronger presence in the existing space in domestic markets and in the international market.

Cities play an important role in population distribution and economic growth. One of the aspects addressed in the urban economics literature is the relationship between urbanization and economic growth. Urbanization is the relationship between population, employment, migration and environment, Given that the economic growth of a geographical area is affected by variables and the effects of overflows of other areas, especially its neighbors, in addition to the spatial dependence created through these variables, the effects that are common to all geographical areas also cause correlation in economic growth of units. They become geographical, so it is necessary to differentiate between the dependence created by these factors and the spatial dependence caused by the spatial effects of variables, because otherwise the role of spatial effects will be more colorful than it really is. Therefore, to control these effects, spatial patterns were estimated once without these effects and once with these effects in 30 provinces of Iran. The results show that even considering the effects of common factors, there is still a positive autocorrelation. There is a gap between the economic growth of the provinces of the country . Results of applying the effects of common factors show is that considering these effects has reduced the intensity of the spatial effect. Also, the results of estimating the dynamic spatial Durbin model indicate that the relationship between urbanization and economic growth of Iranian provinces is inverted U and the effects of urban spillover on economic growth. Neighboring provinces are positive and meaningful.

Insurance is one of the main tools for risk management in the agricultural sector. Risks related to the poultry industry impair chicken meat production in the short run and complicate planning in the long run. The continuous growth of the risk ratio and the daily increasing moral hazards are the most important reasons for changing the poultry insuring method. This study has used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and the Malmquist index to evaluate the effectiveness of negotiation-oriented approach for broiler insurance, using data and information of the Comprehensive System (CS) of the Agricultural Insurance Fund. According to the results, the insurance technology improvement has taken place only in 2013 and 2014, before the implementation of the new method. However, the progress of broiler industry insurance technology is evident in all years after the implementation of the negotiation-centered insurance plan. The research data shows an annual decline of 5.3% in the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in broiler insurance during 2011-2015. On the other hand, there are an annual growth of 22.7% in insurance performance after the implementation of the negotiation-centered insurance method for 2016-2020.

Researchers consider social capital as an important component of economic development and a key factor in sustainable rural development, and consider education as a factor in creating and strengthening it too. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of extension education on farmers' social capital in Khorasan Razavi using seemingly unrelated regression equations. The research tool was a questionnaire that the calculated coefficients indicate its high reliability. The statistical population of this study includes all farmers in the province. Due to the size and dispersion of villages, we used two-stage cluster sampling and the required sample size estimated at 384 people. The results showed that the four components of social capital have different conditions and also the general variable of social capital with an average of 0.61 is slightly higher than the average and therefore does not have favorable conditions. Quchan has the first rank and Khoshab has the second rank. Statistical analysis of the data showed that among the 11 independent variables, education variables, cooperative member and ownership status did not have a significant effect on social capital, but other independent variables showed a significant positive or negative effect on social capital. The variable of participation in the training course (except for the component of social cohesion) had a positive and significant effect on other components and also on the variable of social capital, which indicates the importance and key role of extension training in improving the social capital of farmers.

The uncertainty in economic growth theory and multiple alternative measures to affecting components on economic growth and lack of specification of the most appropriate to investigate the variables affecting economic growth has led to introducing new regression models to identify more accurate factors affecting on economic growth that focused by economic researchers. Therefore, Therefore, this study aimed to identify factors affecting economic growth and type of spatial communications of 21 selected developed countries during 2005-2013 using panel Tobit and spatial panel Tobit models is taken. The evaluation among used models in this study showed that the spatial panel Tobit with spatial error gave favorable results. Results showed that population, research and development expenditure, foreign direct investment and life expectancy has significant positive effect and trade liberalization has an insignificant positive effect on economic growth. It is suggested in future studies about countries with adjacent location, spatial models used besides the competitive models to achieve better results.

The scope and complexity of activities in food supply chains has exposed this networks to more negative risks, so that decision makers and business actors in this chains are forced to identify and evaluate the risks correctly and also adopting the necessary policies to reduce the likelihood of risks occurrence and severity consequences. The purpose of this study is to investigate and measure the supply chain performance in real conditions under different risks and to analyze it with using agent-based simulation. For this purpose, milk supply chain was studied in Zahedan city during 2018 and 2019 period. In this study, the theoretical sampling method of Strauss and Corbin was used. A regular series of purposefully in-depth and semi-structured interviews was conducted with a group of 24 experts and specialists related to the chain to extract qualitative data. Identified 61 risks in the chain in the field research were initially evaluated using the Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis, then, the active chains in the region was simulated with the agent-based modeling approach and using Net Logo software, and 27 risk reduction scenarios were examined to evaluate the changes in the performance indicators of the chain. Regarding the validation of the results of simulation tests, paired (t) test was performed and also the results of 30 independent replications of the model was compared with each other. Among the identified various risks in the chain, price fluctuations of agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, labor, etc.), milk price fluctuations and lack of information had the most negative impact on chain performance and as a result of appropriate measures such as the use of marketing and futures contracts and other local tools that reduce the level of risk from high to medium level in the chain, some other performance indicators of the chain can be improved while increasing the overall revenue of the chain.

The agricultural sector and its related activities have certain characteristics, which expose it to numerous unforeseen risks and damages, resulting in multiple losses and problems. Therefore, identifying and evaluating these risks and damages can help farmers make the right decisions. The purpose of the present study is to identify and evaluate melon crop production risks, and to prepare risk profiles for this crop.

Two criteria of frequency of occurrence and extent of risk, and finally risk matrix were used to assess the damage of each production risks. The sample size was determined based on simple random sampling procedure and the data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 50 melon farmers in Mashhad in 2019.

Study findings suggest that the largest risk area in terms of risk frequency and risk effect is assigned to the fifth area including drought risk, pests, various illnesses, birds and melon fly, following by the first area with 4 risks and the second and third areas with 1 risk.

We highly recommend the use of risk profiles to design patterns and insurance coverage which fits various risks. As a result, losses of insurance fund will mitigate and major and important risks in melon production will be covered, and thus, insurance demand will increase.

Due to the lack of tools for measuring organizational learning ability in universities, the purpose of this study was to construct and validate an organizational learning ability questionnaire in Farhangian University.The purpose of this study was to build and validate the questionnaire of organizational learning in Farhangian University. The study was instrumental with an analytical approach and the statistical population of the scientific and executive elite was aware of the issue that the factors were identified by Delphi method. Morgan 196 questionnaires were analyzed.First 153 items were identified and then converted to 83 items, then by CVR and CVI coefficient determination method, 25 items were removed and finally 58 items were analyzed by exploratory factor, including 9 factors organizational management, organizational strategy, organizational environment, and organizational structure. Organizational culture, organizational innovation, organizational technology, organizational climate, leadership style identified 71.59% of the total questionnaire. Then confirmatory factor analysis was performed and the results showed that the factor load of all items was suitable for measuring their factors. In order to evaluate the external and internal reliability of the model, Cronbach's alpha coefficient and combined reliability were used to evaluate the convergent validity of the AVE index, and to evaluate the divergent validity, the Fornel and Larker methods were used, all of which were confirmed.

The adaptation of the same water resources management policies in a plain or watershed due to the heterogeneity of its areas generally leads to a reduction in the effectiveness of policies. Hence, the evaluation of the adaptability of different areas of the study area with water resources protection policies can be important and necessary.The aim of the current study is to evaluate the adaptability of rural districts of Neyshabour plain to groundwater protection policies. To achieve this goal, in the first step, economic, demographic, environmental, educational, and cultural, as well as communication criteria and sub-criteria are selected, and then the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria are determined using Fuzzy AHP. Then, the status of each of the rural districts in the Neyshabour plain based on the studied index is determined using a multi-criteria decision-making method (PROMETHEE) in 2017. The results show that economic and environmenral ctritera with weights of 40 and 19%, respectively, are of higher importance compared to other criteria in the adaptability index. According to the results of this study, three the rural districts of Ardoghsh, Mazol, and Zeberkhan have a higher adaptability to groundwater protection policies than other the rural districts of plain, and the rural districts of Ghazali, Eshghabad, and Belherat are in the final ranks. In order to increase the cooperation of farmers in the southern and western rural districts of the plain with groundwater conservation programs, it is suggested to use appropriate training and incentive policies as complementary policies in these areas.

One of the most important consequences increased radiative forcing due to anthropogenic activities is global warming, that created varied and challenging changes such as climate change on ecosystems. Predictions show that the increased radiative forcing will continue. Regarding to the existence of several climate models and error correction methods, selection of the right model is one of the key challenges. In this study, the accuracy and efficiency of the fifth report on regional climate models including CanESM2, CSIRO Mk3, EC- EARTH, IPSL, MIROC51, HadGEM2, MPI, NorESM1 and GFDL and statistical downscaling error correction methods including Linear Scaling (LS), Change Factor (CF), Distribution Mapping (DM),  Local Intensity Scaling(LI), Power Transformation (PT) and Variance Scaling (VS) Using T and F tests, the Taylor diagram and 10 statistical indices during two control (1956-2005) and validation (2006-2015) periods were assessed in Birjand station. The results show that; comparing the average of monthly period increases the efficiency of models and methods exaggeratedly. The best model is different based on statistical indicators and time series period. CF downscaling method is not accurate in validation period. LS and VS downscaling methods are appropriate selection for precipitation and temperature parameters respectively. Also, average accuracy of all models for both precipitation and temperature parameters is better than a single model. MPI and Earth climate models have good performance in simulating precipitation and temperature data.

Almost all rural communities in Iran are exclusively engaged with agriculture, therefore farming remains the largest source of income for them. Agriculture can be a major driver of growth for the Iranian economy. Therefore, increasing factor productivity in the agricultural sector is essential and by growing population rate, the need to invent more productive systems is highlighted. In this regards, smallholder agriculture, which is marked by low productivity should be transformed into agribusiness corporations which could foster the income and productivity of enterprises. Regarding the effective role of agribusiness corporations in enhancing agricultural productivity, and providing livelihoods and employment in rural communities, this study aimed at investigating the impact of location decision, social and human capital factors on the longevity of an agribusiness corporation called Khezri Agribusiness Corporation located in Khezri Township from Sothern Khorasan province. The reason for choosing Khezri Corporation as the case study was that according to surveys, this corporation has been one of the most successful agricultural associations for many years and has been able to create job opportunities to stop migration towards big cities. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to expendably investigate the factors affecting the continuity of an agribusiness corporation in Iran.

In order to achieve the objectives of the research, a well-structured questionnaire has been designed according to the literature review and using the opinions of university professors and experts of Khezri Agricultural Corporation. In this study, location factors, social capital and human capital are three main structures that are assessed by providing the information extracted from the questionnaire, and then, the impact of each structure on the continuity of the corporation's activity has been investigated based on indexing method. Each of the structures consists of different dimensions, and each dimension is measured by a number of items or questions using a Likert spectrum. Simple random sampling procedure was used to obtain the size of sample. At the end, the sample size was estimated at 45. Applying a systematic random sampling technique, the respondents were selected and the final questionnaire was distributed among them. At the primary analysis, 15 questionnaires were excluded from the analysis due to the large size of missing information. A total of 30 questionnaires were selected for further analysis. It is worth noting that in most cases, the questionnaires were tried to be completed in the form of interviews to increase the accuracy of the work.

Study findings suggest that location, social and human capital factors are at a high level of importance in the studied corporation. From the viewpoint of respondents, social capital had the greatest impact on the longevity of the corporation, followed by location and human capital. Furthermore, the communication dimension in social capital, the infrastructure factors in the location decision and the non-cognitive abilities in the human capital have been identified as the most influential components on the longevity of Khezri Agricultural Company's activities. Among the infrastructural factors, the criterion of "existence of basic resources" such as water wells, aqueducts, qanats, underground aquifers, etc. is the most effective criterion. According to 93.3% of respondents, this factor has a moderate to high impact on the corporation's location.

We recommend effective communication and planning in improvement of communication between organizational units and communication between managers and employees needs to be strengthened. Internalization of the organization's vision, mission, and goals, implementing a goal-based management plan, and applying the suggestion system in the organization and investing in formal and organized training are recommended as well to sustain the agribusiness corporations. It must be noted that given that the findings of this study are largely in line with the research background, its recommendations are expected to be applicable to the other agricultural business corporations in Iran. In addition, as we formerly discussed in the introduction of this paper,despite the benefits of agricultural corporations, few of these companies are currently active in the country. Therefore, analysis of factors affecting farmers’ decision to be involved in establishing agribusiness corporations should be the subject of future research.

Saffron is one of the most valuable and important agricultural products in Iran, and, it is necessary to consider the preferences of consumers to develop its market. Consumers have different needs and wants, and by benefit segmenting the saffron market, companies can understand customers' preferences in each segment of the market correctly. Therefore, in this study, using the crisp and fuzzy clustering algorithms, the saffron market was divided into homogenous segments, and then, using the results of the conjoint analysis; consumer preferences, attitudes, and demographic characteristics were examined in each saffron market segment. The necessary data were collected from 400 respondents using a stratified sampling method from 13 districts of Mashhad, Iran. The results of this study showed that the saffron market could be divided into six homogeneous segments, and the fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm performs better at finding clusters than k-means, k-medoids, fuzzy Gustafson-Kessel and fuzzy Gath-Geva methods. According to the study findings, in most market segments, the weight of saffron and the packaging type are the most important attributes influencing purchase decisions. Based on the study results, it is suggested that saffron companies consider consumer preferences in different market segments when supplying saffron products and formulating marketing strategies.

One of the main activities of banks is the allocation of resources, one of the main aspects of which is determining the optimal combination of credits to various economic sectors. Lack of attention to the allocation of financial resources available to the bank, can cause serious damage to the entire economic system. In this study with the purpose of determining the optimal portfolio of the bank, each of the different activities of the creditor was considered as an asset. Given that the fluctuations in the ratio of lending credits collection are the main source of expected bank earnings fluctuations, so the amount of lending credits of each economic activity, which need to be collected are considered as return standard of, and its variance is consider as a risk. Also, in order to determine the range of expected return on assets, the historical average on each asset is calculated. Considering the necessity of reviewing this issue, in this paper, a multi-objective non-linear programming model using the firefly algorithm has been used to determine the optimal portfolio of agricultural bank credits. The main features of this research are the consideration of three optimistic pessimistic and hybrid strategies under different economic conditions. The results showed that the optimal pattern obtained from the firefly algorithm differs from the current model of distribution of bank credits.The present findings can provide managers with a roadmap for choosing the optimal portfolio consistent with the bank's preferences according to different estimates of return and risk, thus leading to the proper management of loans

Nowadays due to the intensity of competition and continuous changes in environmental conditions, identification of customers' needs and wants is essential to gaining competitive advantage in domestic and international markets. Saffron is one of the most valuable and important agricultural products in Iran, and for the development of its market, it is necessary to consider the preferences of consumers of this product. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to rank and evaluate the effect of saffron attributes on the consumer utility of this product in Mashhad city. In this study, 3, 3 and 8 levels were considered for the trade name, packaging type and weight, respectively. In 2020, The data from 400 respondents were collected using a stratified sampling method (with proportionate allocation) from 13 districts of Mashhad-Iran. Using conjoint analysis, the results of the study showed that the weight of saffron marketed and the packaging type are important attributes influencing consumer preferences. In a more detailed analysis and taking into account the attribute levels, the results of the study confirmed that the highest utility values were found in saffron products with pocket packaging and weight of 4.608 gr. According to the study results, to design marketing strategies for different customer groups, saffron companies are recommended to pay more attention to consumer preferences in target markets.