Evaluation of The Dust Phenomenon Effect and Climatic Variables on The Welfare of Maize Farmers in Khuzestan Province

The dust phenomenon, along with other climatic phenomena affects the agricultural sector, income and welfare of farmers. In recent decades, the dust phenomenon, especially in the western Iran, has become one of the environmental problems. In this study, the effect of climatic variables and the dust phenomenon on maize farmers has been investigated in Khuzestan province during 2000-2016. For this purpose, the Ricardian model has been estimated using panel data approach. The results show that the dust variable has a negative and significant effect on Khuzestan maize farmer’s rents, so that, dust reduces rents 2381 thousand Rials per hectare per crop year. Among the climatic variables, the temperature and humidity variables affect rents significantly. That way, increasing 1˚C in temperature over its mean (32.9˚C), will increase rents by 9405 thousand Rials per hectare, and also increasing 1% in the air moisture over its mean (29.9%) will reduce rents by 2272 thousand Rials per hectare. The effects of other climatic variables (rainfall and wind speed) were not significant. The results also show that fertilizer, pesticides, and the share of surface water in irrigation have a positive and significant effect on the rents and sees, labor and total area under maize cultivation have a negative and significant effect on the rents.