Factors Affecting Vegetable Seeds Imports to Iran and Selected Countries

In today's world, there is not a country that can provide all the needs of its society without the products and services of other countries. As a result, exchanging goods and services between countries is based on the relative and absolute advantage. By increasing private sector investment and research on plants breeding in developed countries, intellectual property rights have gained special importance in the seed sector. Regarding Iran as a major country in importing seeds, especially the import of vegetable seeds, it is necessary to study the Factors affecting Seed Import to Iran .The present study seeks to answer the following questions: What are the factors affecting seed import to Iran? What is the implication of intellectual property treaties for Seed Import to Iran? And whether joining to international intellectual property treaties, the aspects related to intellectual property rights which is one of the conditions for joining to World Trade Organization or the acceptance of a new plant protection treaty will increase the seed import to selected countries, including Iran? Data from 10 countries in the period from 2005 to 2016 have been used to answer this question. Selected countries, including Iran and nine other countries with developmental level close to Iran, were able to access the data they needed. These include Azerbaijan, Colombia, Egypt, China, Indonesia, Peru, South Africa, Malaysia, Brazil and Iran.

This study used the gravity regression model to investigate the effects of membership in the law of intellectual and commercial law on the seeds of vegetables in Iran. Given the goal of studying the bilateral trade of countries in different years in gravity pattern, using combined data, it is possible to determine the specific trade effects of each pair of countries. But there is no such information about crosssectional data. In this way, the relationship between other variables at any given time can be measured in a concrete way. In order to determine these factors, panel data including import variables, distance between countries, GDP per capita, population of selected countries, cultivated area, and virtual variables of membership or non-membership in any intellectual property treaties in Trade and conservation of new plant varieties from 2005 to 2016 have been used.

According to the results of the Hausman test, random effects method has been used to estimate the model. In Brazil, after joining the new plant protection treaty, imports did not vary much and kept their downward trend. Peru has experienced a significant increase over a short period after joining the new plant protection treaty. Concerning the acceptance of the treaty, the aspects related to intellectual property rights for both Egyptian and Indonesian countries were regarded as an example. In Egypt, the import of vegetable seeds has been very short and temporary. Similarly, there is no significant change in the import of vegetable seeds for Indonesia. The results showed that the distance has a negative and significant effect on seed imports. Gross domestic product and population variables have a positive and significant effect on seed imports. Iran membership in each of the international treaties has a positive and significant effect on the seed imports.

This study examined the factors affecting seed import by Iran and selected countries. The results showed that, as expected, the distance variable with the negative coefficient was significant, which means that by increasing in distance, the amount of seed imports will decrease. Population variable obtained positive and significant coefficients. That denotes that by increase in population of Iran, the amount of seed imports into Iran will increase. The other variables in this study are not significant. The membership variables in each of the treaties, the new plant cultivar conservation treaty, and the aspects related to intellectual property rights treaty are statistically significant with positive coefficient. That means membership in intellectual property treaties has a positive effect on the amount of seed imports and the amount of increase in imports depends on the degree of implementation of the commitments and adherence to the rules of these treaties. Therefore, with regard to the positive effect of joining to international treaties on seed imports, it is suggested that before joining to international treaties strengthening the infrastructure in seed industry and improving the competitiveness of this industry against seed imports should have happened.