Study the Effect of Agricultural Production Growth on Biomass Production in Middle East and Iran

The main purpose of this paper is to reveal the short and long run effects of agricultural production growth on biomass production for Middle East countries and especially for Iran. This study employs panel data from 11 Middle East countries, from 1980 to 2013, in order to fulfill two aims. First, to test whether or not there is an EKC type relationship between biomass and economic growth in the Middle East and Iran. Second, to investigate the impact of agricultural sector growth on biomass production. Also, in this study, the area of arable and permanent crops was used as an agricultural sector production growth index and Panel unit root analyses and panel cointegration analyses were used to examine the relationship. The results showed that in both the statistical society of Iran and the Middle East, there is the Kuznets environmental curve hypothesis between biomass production and economic growth. In addition, the results confirmed the growth hypothesis in which agricultural sector production growth has positive effects on biomass production of Middle East countries and Iran.