Investigating Factors Affecting Import Demand of Meat and Livestock Inputs in Iran

High dependence on the import of red meat and livestock inputs and the lack of domestic production of these products in Iran have caused any change in import policy of these products will affect the welfare of many producers and consumers. Due to the close relationship between import of these products and food security and the welfare of the society, recognizing the factors affecting the import demand of these products is important to proper policy making in livestock sector. In this study, the factors affecting meat import demand (including veal, lamb and chicken) and livestock import demand (including corn and soybean meal) have been investigated using imperfect substitute model. After performing statistical tests, the import demand functions of the products were estimated using simultaneous equations method. The variables affecting the impor demand of these products include tariff rate, GDP, real effective exchange rate, domestic production and relative price of imported products. Based on results which showed that tariff rate has significant effect on the import demand of veal, chicken, animal corn and soybean meal, it is helpful to use this tool to control the import quantity of veal, animal corn and soybean meal, whereas changing tariff rate to control the import quantity of lamb do not have much effect. Also, it was found that the import demand for livestock inputs was highly elastic to change in real effective exchange rate. So, it is necessary to prevent unreasonable increase in exchange rate and its fluctuations.