javad hosseinzad

The growing population and increasing demand for agricultural products, including protein products such as chicken meat due to limited resources, have made it necessary to improve the productivity of inputs. Since the technological change is one of the significant components of productivity change, therefor, the present study was conducted to evaluate the trend and nature of technological change in the Iranian poultry industry.

For this purpose, required data were collected from 27 provinces during the period 1996-2017. In the present study, a cost function approach is used as a basis for estimating technological change using panel data. Technological change may be neutral or biased, depending on how the relationship between inputs is affected. The estimation is based on an output and multi-input Translog cost function. The Translog function has the advantage of being a flexible functional form. The parameters of the cost function were estimated on the basis of the model system including the cost function and four of the five share equations using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE). The estimation was performed imposing the normal symmetry conditions. The F-Limer test is used to measure whether the data are panel or pooled. Then the Hausman test is then used to determine the use of the fixed or random effects model. In order to estimating the system of equations, one of the equations of input cost share is eliminated and all cost function equations and share of input demand are estimated simultaneously. In the model used, the price of all inputs was divided by the price of one-day-old chickens.

The estimation of the models performed relatively well. There was a very high degree of explanation, and most of the parameters had the expected sign. The estimation gave a very high degree of explanation, so that the value of R2 was equal to 0.96. The rate of technological change in some provinces that used the latest technology was above the national average. A negative sign in technological change indicates a decrease in the growth of production costs over time. Thus, it can be seen that the improvement of technology, the use of new production methods as symbols of technology, has reduced the cost of the poultry industry. Using the original breed of day-old chickens, poultry feed and high-quality materials, benefiting from efficient heating and cooling system are among the symbols of technological change. This shows that by using different forms of technology, poultry units have been able to increase the amount of chicken meat production. The rate of technology change has been declining until 2014 and reached its minimum in that year. That is, in 2014, compared to other years, the cost of producing each unit of chicken meat in poultry farms in different provinces of the country has decreased. The results of pure technological change showed that in all years under review, the amount of neutral technological change was positive and its average was 0.93. In general, it can be said that the process of changing pure technology over time has increased the production cost. The results of changing the input biased technological change showed that its average values were -0.26. Thus, it can be said that in the production of broiler chicken, technological developments have led to savings in production factors. the average rate of technology change was -1.61 percent over the mentioned time period, which means that in the study period the rate of cost change of production units has been decreased. Since cost elasticity was less than one (0.37), so the production is faced with the increasing return to scale. Therefore, the reduction in the cost causes economic savings in the production process.

According to the results of this research, the technology has changed in order to use more poultry feed; In other words, the technological change in the Iranian poultry industry is energy and labor saving. The results of cost elasticity, which was less than one, showed that product production in these units has an upward return to scale, so it confirms the existence of economies of scale in the poultry industry. Finally, it is suggested that the poultry industry utilizes the new technology and increases the production scale in order to access comparative advantage.

Honey is a healthy, nutritious and natural food that contains minerals, enzymes, and vitamins that give a person nutritious and organoleptic properties. It is produced on all five continents and its consumption varies from country to country due to cultural reasons and eating habits (FAO, 2022). Honey production in the world has increased from 771,114 tons in 1971 to 1,770,119 tons in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 1.84 percent (Knoema, 2022). Honey plays an effective role in ensuring global food security, and its market structure is dictated by its production efficiency. Given the limited resources of the agricultural sector, the optimal use of natural resources by improving technological efficiency in honey production would help ensure sufficient food for the increasingly growing world population (kavand et all., 2014; Hosseinzad & Koopahi, 1999). One of the factors affecting the efficiency of honey production is competitive and efficient markets. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to determine the structure of the honey market in the provinces that produce this product and its relation to the technical efficiency of the producers.

This study uses the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) to study the market structure of honey-producing provinces in Iran. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index is calculated by squaring the market share of each competing production unit in the industry and then summing the resulting numbers. For this purpose, two different scenarios are considered. In the first scenario, the HHI was calculated based on the share of production of the counties and in the second scenario, it was calculated based on the number of apiaries in each county. To estimate the technical efficiency, the stochastic frontier Cobb-Douglas production function was used. For this purpose, first, the HHI values were considered as inefficient function variables and then the inefficiency function along with the Cobb-Douglas frontier function using maximum likelihood method was estimated and the technical efficiency values of the provinces were calculated. The data used in this study for 2019-20 have been obtained from the results of the census of Iranian apiaries. Excel2013 software was used to calculate Herfindahl-Hirschman index values and Stata15 software was used to estimate the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function.

Our findings show that the mean value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index based on the first scenario in 2019 is 0.23 and in 2020 is 0.24. Therefore, Iran’s honey market during the studied years turns out to be monopolistic competition. The mean value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index according to the second scenario for 2019 and 2020 was calculated as 0.16 and 0.17, respectively, which indicates that the country's honey market was competitive during the years under review. According to the results of Cobb-Douglas Stochastic frontier production function, inputs including; apiary, labor and hive have a positive and significant impact on honey production. The average efficiency during 2019-20 according to the first scenario is 61.2% and according to the second scenario is 64.2%. According to the first and second scenarios, it is possible to increase the efficiency by 38.8% and 35.5%, respectively. The results of the inefficiency function also confirmed that increasing the value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (i.e. increasing the degree of monopoly and distance from the competitive market) has a positive effect on inefficiency (negative effect on efficiency).

In conclusion, the results indicated that Iran’s honey market in recently years was has changed to monopolistic situation. This event has caused to decrease the efficiency of apiaries. So it can be possible to increase the efficiency of apiaries through stablishing competitive structure in honey market. In this case motivating for investment in modern production technologies and related industries can help to competitive circumstances in the honey market. market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency

Excessive and undesirable extraction of water resources in many agricultural areas of Iran, especially Marand Plain as one of the agricultural poles of East Azerbaijan province, has revealed the necessity of optimal allocation of limited water resources and the necessity of different irrigation strategies for each crop. Accordingly, this study aimed at determining the optimal cropping pattern of crops with emphasis on water resources limitation in Marand Plain. For this purpose, a fractional programming model with multiple objectives was used to evaluate the relative efficiency of agricultural sustainability. According to the study results, the optimal pattern of sustainable cultivation of the proposed model would reduce the gross income of farmers in the short run, compared with that of the linear programming model; also , based on the results of the model, the water consumption deficit programming model would be done so that there might be no shortage of water in different months while the consumption of harmful chemicals such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides would be at its minimum aa well as eliminating the crops which produce less gross profit than that of the water use pattern from the current cropping pattern and including the crops with low economic cost and low water requirement such as saffron which are compatible with the region's climate. Accordingly, the role of agricultural extension in training modern methods of irrigation, education of scientific agricultural production methods and the role of agriculture in the appropriate use of water saving technologies, the use of saved water in products with higher returns while increasing the area under cultivation such as saffron are more evident to achieve the sustainable agriculture.

Among agricultural activities, aquaculture has shown the highest growth among food production sources in the last two decades. According to the F.A.O., aquaculture is the best supply of the maximum motivation for poverty alleviation. Uncertainty and risk in the aquaculture subsector, like other agricultural subsectors, are formed due to unfavorable weather conditions, the prevalence of diseases, and price fluctuations. Naturally, due to uncontrollable factors and risks, the efficiency of production units is expected to decline. Identifying sources of these risk in aquaculture activities is one of the key points for risk management. It is clear that risk can never be eliminated, but it can be managed by identification. Zanjan province is one of the major fish farming regions of the country and among them is the city of Mahneshan which accounts for about 65% of the total fish production of this province.

The purpose of this study is to the identification of risk management tools in fish farms and their effect on the technical efficiency of these farms in Mahneshan county. To this end, the stochastic frontier production function was applied and the required data were collected by surveying a questionnaire by stratified proportional random sampling from salmon farms in three-zone including Central, Angoran, and Oryad in Mahneshan county in 2020. In general, risk management strategies in the agriculture sector were divided into two categories: in-farm risk management strategy and off-farm risk management strategy. These two categories are classified into 8 risk management tools and then measured by the Likert spectrum. The Cobb-Douglas functional form was selected to estimate the stochastic frontier production function.

The results showed that among the in-farm risk management strategies, the selection technology with less risk tool is the most popular and the tool of the financing method is very common in the off-farm risk management strategies. In address to the comparison between In-farm and Off-farm’s risk management strategies, the fish farmers are more likely to use in-farm risk management strategies. The estimated results of the Cobb-Douglas production function showed that the total area of pools, number of baby fish, labor, and feed cost, Floating usage, and Aerator usage have a significant effect on fish production. According to the results, if the total pools area increases by one percentage, the frontier fish production will increase by 0.06 percentages, and if the number of baby fish increase by one percentage, the fish production will increase more than one percent. After estimating the frontier production function, the technical inefficiency model was estimated. The results showed that with increasing age, the technical efficiency rise and enhancing the participation to the fish training courses and being fish breeding as the main job, have a positive effect on the technical efficiency so that it improves significantly. Also, increasing the number of pools and being fish farming as the main job has a positive effect on the technical efficiency of farms. Regarding the impact of risk management tools on the technical efficiency of fish farms, it was observed that the technology selection with fewer risk tools has a negative impact, and the flexibility tools, and the use of marketing contracts tools have a positive effect on breeders' technical efficiency. So, by using these tools, the technical efficiency of the farms also increases. Finally, the technical efficiency of the farms was calculated and results revealed that about 50% of farms have an efficiency of more than 90%, and farms with a pool area of 1000-1500 square meters with 89% efficiency, have the highest technical efficiency.

The results showed that among the in-farm risk management strategies, the selection technology with less risk tool is the most popular and the tool of the financing method is very common in the off-farm risk management strategies. In address to the comparison between In-farm and Off-farm’s risk management strategies, the fish farmers are more likely to use in-farm risk management strategies. The estimated results of the Cobb-Douglas production function showed that the total area of pools, number of baby fish, labor, and feed cost, Floating usage, and Aerator usage have a significant effect on fish production. According to the results, if the total pools area increases by one percentage, the frontier fish production will increase by 0.06 percentages, and if the number of baby fish increase by one percentage, the fish production will increase more than one percent. After estimating the frontier production function, the technical inefficiency model was estimated. The results showed that with increasing age, the technical efficiency rise and enhancing the participation to the fish training courses and being fish breeding as the main job, have a positive effect on the technical efficiency so that it improves significantly. Also, increasing the number of pools and being fish farming as the main job has a positive effect on the technical efficiency of farms. Regarding the impact of risk management tools on the technical efficiency of fish farms, it was observed that the technology selection with fewer risk tools has a negative impact, and the flexibility tools, and the use of marketing contracts tools have a positive effect on breeders' technical efficiency. So, by using these tools, the technical efficiency of the farms also increases. Finally, the technical efficiency of the farms was calculated and results revealed that about 50% of farms have an efficiency of more than 90%, and farms with a pool area of 1000-1500 square meters with 89% efficiency, have the highest technical efficiency.

Given that producers use risk-reduction tools rather than transferring risk on farms and this also harms the technical efficiency, so it is recommended that in a progressive world to take advantage of modern production technology, a great facility should be provided.

Energy input is one of the main factors of extracting water from groundwater resources. Therefore, pricing policies related to energy carriers affect the cost of water extraction and it also affects the amount of water extraction. In the past years, one of the reasons that has put more pressure on groundwater resources is the inappropriate subsidy policies for energy carrier prices. Given the close relationship between energy carriers prices and the costs of groundwater extraction, in the present study, it was tried to investigate the effect of energy carriers' subsidies decreasing on the amount of groundwater consumption, cropping patterns and agricultural income using the dynamic programming model in Shabestar plain. This plain is one of the critical areas in terms of groundwater resources in Iran. The results showed that decreasing energy carriers' subsidies caused extraction reduction of water from groundwater resources. For example, a 25 and 50 percent reduction in energy carrier subsidies would reduce groundwater extraction by about 4.5 and 6.5 million cubic meters per year, respectively. Also, areas under cultivation of some high water using and low-income products decrease and cropping patterns change toward more high-income products such as onions, apples and walnuts. The results indicated that adopting appropriate energy carrier subsidy policies could be useful for improving groundwater extraction conditions.

Climate change is one of the main issues in the 21st century and has been felt in many regions of world. The greatest impact of climate change is on the water resource sector. Ajichay, as one of the main agricultural areas and a source of water consumption around the Lake Urmia, has lost its efficiency as the supplier of water and is considered as the center of crisis due to changes in the climate, lack of precipitation, and human factors. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the impacts of water resources management scenarios for adaptation of climate change on water resources, cropping patterns and profits of farmers using a hydro-economic model. The HadCM3 model and LARS-WG downscaling were used to generate daily climatic data under the emissions of A2 scenario. The results showed that the average rainfall decreased in 38% under A2 emission scenario during 2018-2050 period. In the next period of 2018-2050, the average annual temperature will also increase by 2.5 °C compared to the baseline period. Changes in the cropping area due to climate change show that among the studied crops, bean had the highest reduction in cultivation, which stemmed from its high-water requirement. Results showed the profit in all the sub-bases had a rise after increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. Thus, applying increasing efficiency scenario, in addition to more useful and efficient use of allocated water, will also increase farmers' profits which offer a better situation than the other scenarios. Overall, the findings of the current study revealed that without changing the management strategies there would be a considerable reduction in water resource in near future. The analysis of scenarios revealed that policies alone cannot compensate for water problems and there is a need for plenty of scenario for optimum results.

This study investigated the basin sustainability in the baseline and climate change status. Then the effects of water resources management scenarios such as agricultural water reducing, increasing irrigation efficiency and increasing the water price on sustainability indicators were investigated.

A hydro-economic model was used to evaluate the effects of climate change on hydrological and economic variables. Modeling of hydrologic behavior was performed by WEAP-MABIA model and economic behavior using quadratic risk programming. The LARS-WG downscaling model was used to simulate climate change under three future emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1), for the period 2020-2050. Agricultural sustainability was evaluated using performance criteria such as reliability, resilience, vulnerability and the irrigation water deficit index.

Evaluation of the sustainability indicators in the current situation indicates the instability of water resource and under climate change conditions, the hydrological basin status will be more critical that it goes from 0.86 in the basin situation to 0.72 under A2 climate change scenario. Implementing water resource management scenarios improves the sustainability indicators compared to climate change and the largest increase is related to the increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. In this scenario, the average of agricultural sustainability compared to climate change increases by 11.1% and irrigation water deficit index decreases by 26.6%, which It indicates the improvement of the region sustainability.

Due to the high effectiveness of the increasing irrigation efficiency scenario, it was recommended to increase irrigation efficiency by changing irrigation technology and using modern irrigation methods.

Given the limited available water resources, the conflict-laden issues of water allocation have become a challenging issue for planners and water consumers. The existence of different types of uncertainties and climate change conditions in the water resources systems intensify the complexity of the optimal allocation process of water resources in the agricultural field. Therefore, In the present study, it is tried to optimally allocate water resources in Marand watershed by developing a mathematical planning model that is capable of dynamics and uncertainty conditions both in the parameters of objective functions and in constraints.

In this study, an uncertainty-based interactive multi-stage stochastic programming (UIMSP) approach is proposed by incorporating the fractile criterion method and chance-constrained programming within a multi-stage decision-making framework for agricultural water resource management in various planning horizon. A two-period scenario tree with different probabilities for violating constraints (α) and various satisfactory levels of the objective function (β) were selected.

The results indicates that the minimum and maximum benefits of the system are [46.6, 983.6] × 1010 (Rials) and [699.7, 1483.1] × 1010 (Rials) when α=0.01  and , β=0.9 , respectively. In addition, an increase in satisfactory levels of the objective function (β) led to a gradual decrease in both upper and lower bound of the total net benefits at each given probability level of violating constraint (α), while any change in probability of constraint violation (α) resulted in creating a significant change in the system profits. Also, the results of the UIMSP model show that water scarcity is observed in different scenarios due to insufficient water resources in Marand watershed. However, according to the results, in the second period, despite the decrease in the amount of water available, the amount of water shortage has decreased with increasing irrigation efficiency. For example, under medium flow level, the amount of surface and groundwater shortages in the first period is 43.6% and 32.5%, respectively, while it is reduced by [36.9, 24.5] and [24.5, 0] percent in the second period.

The results can help decision-makers examine potential interactions between risks related to the stochastic objective function and constraints. Also, increasing irrigation efficiency and upgrading irrigation systems are among the main strategies that can provide an economic benefit to farmers while reducing environmental damage.

East Azerbaijan province is one of the important provinces in crop production, with the production of 7.28% of the country's wheat and 4.76% of barley, which has an important role in providing these two products. But in recent years, because of multiple droughts, rainfall reduction and irregular distribution of that, the unpleasant condition of runoff water in the basin of Urmia lake, groundwater level drawdown and increasing their salinity, and etc., the agricultural production, especially the production of these two products, is facing with the challenge of water shortage, which has made the water consumption management to be of particular importance, especially in agricultural sector. Accordingly, in this study, using one of the water management tools, namely water footprint, the components of the water footprint of wheat and barley have been investigated in 21 counties between 2007-2017. Based on the results, the average water footprint for the irrigated wheat and barley in the second half of the study period were 2928 and 2888 m3/ton, and for the rainfed wheat and barley were 2998 and 2829 m3/ton, respectively. The average water productivity for both wheat and barley crops was 0.34 kg/m3, indicating that the cultivation of both crops has the same pressure on the province's water resources. In the most county of the province, the share of blue water footprint was more than green water footprint and in general, the share of blue, green, gray, and white water footprints for irrigated wheat was 33.5, 20.6, 12.6, and 33.3% and for the irrigated barley was 34, 20.7, 15.5 and 29.8%, respectively. Also, for both rainfed wheat and barley, the share of green and gray water footprints was 88.3 and 11.7%. Finally, Northeast of the province could be suitable for irrigated wheat and barley cultivation in terms of water footprint index and just on the basis of water consumption management. Bostan Abad county could be suitable for irrigated wheat and rainfed products and the center, west and south of the province could be suitable for wheat and barely products, in terms of saving water resources.

The role of the agricultural sector in ensuring food security, Employment, self-sufficiency, non-oil exports and currency has led to the prediction of this sector to become one of the basic goals of policymakers. Nowadays, predicting future events play an important role in decision-making process and it has significant importance for planners,policymakers. If policymakers have a clear vision of the future, they certainly can make better and more accurate decisions and achieve higher profits. On the contrary, for those who do not have a clear vision of the future, their decisions will inevitably hurt them. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the country's strategic sector so that managers and planners can provide appropriate policies to achieve self-sufficiency and improve the country's trade situation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to simulate and predict the production, import, export, supply and demand of the agricultural sector over the period 2017-2054.

Productivity improvement is an essential approach to increase production without using more resources. Due to the agriculture is fraught with risks and losses, farmers' behavior is influenced by their risk attitudes and adoption of policies to increase productivity requires adequate knowledge of individual’s decision making mechanism. In present study examined the effect of risk attitudes on total factor productivity for 210 farms of Sarab County that were selected with stratified sampling method. Risk aversion coefficient and Total Factor Productivity were calculated respectively within the Quadratic Risk programming and Fare Primont index. The results of the TFP index show that during the period of 1392-97, the potato had the highest TFP and the rained Barley had the lowest TFP among the studied products. Average Relative Risk aversion coefficient and proportional Risk Premium were 2.9 and 1735000 Rials respectively; this indicates that most farmers in the region are more Risk aversion. The results of the study showed that risk aversion had a negative effect on Total Factor Productivity, therefore reducing the severity of risk and loss and improving risk management skills increase total factor productivity.

The purpose of this study is evaluate and compare technical efficiency of water users association by the approach of the stochastic frontier production function in Maragheh county. Accordingly, for scientific and real understanding of the performance of these associations, the efficiency of productive units is considered. In order to perform this study, the required data were collected through a questionnaire from 147 farmers of Maragheh County. To achieve the aim of this research, stochastic frontier production function was used in which farmers was a function of seed variables, nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer and water. Results showed which average efficiency of producing in wheat fields of the sample is 78.9%. So on these farms with available inputs, there is an average of 21.1% chance to increasing the production. Based on the results, it is observed that in a stochastic frontier production function, nitrogen fertilizers,hosphate fertilizers, water and wheat seeds Variables have a significant effect on wheat production. Also Variables such as age, education, participation in extension courses, marriage and cultivating have a significant effect on technical efficiency. Between studied cases, Varjoy water users association, with average efficiency about 83.07%, has the highest technical efficiency. Therefore, participation in extension courses, adopting measures on land integration and benefiting from the experiences of successful Water Users Association will be an important step towards increasing the efficiency of the Water Users Association studied.

Groundwater resources are important production factors in agricultural production. The excessive extraction of groundwater resources and the unfair weather conditions have made the important challenges in water resources management. According to this, reconsideration in management of water resources seems necessary. Shabestar plain is one of the most important areas of agriculture in East-Azerbaijan province that confront with excessive extraction of groundwater and water resources crisis. Given that rainfall is the main factor in nutrition of groundwater resources so, in this study was tried to investigate the effect of rainfall indices on volume and consumption of groundwater and cropping patterns using the dynamic programming model in Shabestar plain in ten-year (from 2001 to 2016) horizon. The results showed that there is strong correlation between 48-Monthly Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI48) and Groundwater Resource Index (GRI) and height of aquifer. Seting water pumping height on SPI48 caused the balance of aquifer gets better. In the current state of extraction, the aquifer's negative balance is about 10.44 million cubic meters per year. With the optimal extraction, the aquifer's negative balance of 8.26 million cubic meters in normal conditions decreases. If optimal water extraction is done according to the weather conditions, In the drought and normal conditions, the negative balance would be about 9 and 6 million cubic meters, respectively. In wet year conditions, the aquifer's balance will be positive and about 10 million cubic meters will be added to the aquifer volume. According to the results, in drought conditions crops cultivation of wheat, barley and grape increased and crops cultivation of tomato and alfalfa decreased. Reduce water extraction and consumption by using water saving irrigation technologies and also applying appropriate prices for low-water crops are the basic strategies for restoration of groundwater table in the Shabestar region.

Exchange rate is one of the important factors which affect the price of imported inputs like dairy & poultry subsector inputs prices. This study develops a system of empirical models that analysis the exchange rate and the LOP effects on dairy & poultry industry inputs prices (maze, soybeans, barley and fish powder). To achieve the aims of study, we used vector autoregressive (VAR) model in seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework over the period 1381:m1–1391m12. Dichey-Fuller unit root test suggested that all of the variables support the presence of unit root but the presence unit roots can be rejected in the first difference model. The results revealed that, in general, real exchange rate only affects the prices of soybeans and fish powder. A 1% depreciation of the domestic money raises the prices of soybean and fish powder by 8% and 23% respectively, at the same month. Also, results imply no exchange rate pass-through and invalidity of the LOP. According to the results, preventing from intensive increase in exchange rate and its volatility are very important steps on stability of dairy & poultry subsector input prices.

Agriculture is mostly a risky activity in less developed countries, and usually there is inefficiency associate with it. So, Simultaneous study of risk and inefficiency could lead into a more favorable outcome. This study was done to identify factors influencing risk and inefficiency of potato farms in Ardabil. The required data collected by questionnaire from 156 Ardebil potato farmers in 1391. To achieve the purpose, Kumbhakar (2002) and Jaenicke (2003) models that are based on Aigner et al (1977) and the Meeusen and Van Den Broeck (1977) frontier model, were estimated. According to the results, water does not affect production risk in the farms. labor and machinery, reduce production risk and seed increase it. Seed and labor increase the efficiency average and machines and water decrease it. Producers Gender does not affect the efficiency average and efficiency variance. Therefore, increased using of labor for risk reducing and efficiency increasing in these units is recommended.

Because of the special location of the Uremia Lake and its position in the immigration way of immigrant birds، this lake has an enormous environmental importance. There for، studying conservative value of this place could express the importance of its protection، predicting needs، removing scarcities and the investment to protect. There for this research is to estimate conservative value of Urmiya Lake using contingent valuation method. To determine affecting factors on people’s willingness to pay، a logit model was estimated using maximum likelihood approach. Required data was obtained through questionnaires and interviewing with 107 individuals who were selected from Urmia’s families in 2010 year. Results indicated that 59. 1 percents of respondents were ready to pay to protect. Also، results revealed that factors like education، family’s revenue، information level about this lake and the environmental desires of respondents had positive and significant effect، while amount of bid a had negative and significant effect on probability of willingness to pay of respondents. The annual mean value of WTP for protecting current situation of the Urmiya lake is 122500 Rls and for the improvement of its condition is 149800 Rls. Also the estimated total improvement value of the lake was 23019. 9 million RLs. Trying to extend society’s awareness and supporting environmental NGOs besides more concentration on Urmiya Lake’s protection are suggested in this research.

Water is one of the most valuable natural resources in human societies which is demanded by different parts of the society، and as one of the main inputs of production in agriculture has a special role in the agricultural sustainable development. Nowadays، the consumption of water is more than the supply، and its highest consumption is in agriculture. This study scrutinized the role of management of agricultural water in agricultural development. In order to prevent from generalization and to achieve exact and applicable results، Tabriz Plain as one of the most important areas of agriculture in East Azarbaijan has been chosen and canonical correlation has been used. Thereafter، initially to reduce the number of indices to the fundamental mechanism and effective indices، factor analysis has been used and the elements achieved from this analysis have been used as the input in the canonical correlation analysis. The results indicated that 32. 35 percent of the variance of the total water management indices has been defined by three canonical variables of agricultural development. Also، the three canonical variables of water management are capable to declare 43. 32 percent of the variance of the total indices of agricultural development. According to the results، there is a bilateral relationship between water resources management and agricultural development. Hence، considering importance of the underground water resources in agricultural development، it is necessary to act sustainable indices of water usage in development planning.