Relative Advantage of Pistachio Production and Exports in Damghan City

Pistachio is an important part of Iran’s non-petroleum exports. Damghan city has special facilities for pistachio production. Therefore, in this research, the relative advantage of pistachio production and export in Damghan city was investigated from two aspects: production and export. In order to calculate the relative advantage in production, indexes such as Domestic resource cost, Net social profit and Regional Relative Advantage were calculated. In order to determine the relative advantage in export, the indexes of Revealed Relative Advantage and the Revealed Symmetric Relative Advantage were calculated.  According to the time of the research project in May 1399, the statistics of Damghan city in the field of pistachio cultivation area, yield of pistachios, pistachios price, amount of pistachio exports and etc. in the year 1398-99 has been used. In order to collect statistics, the information of reputable statistical centers such as the Ministry of Jihad-e-Agriculture, FAO, Pistachio Association of Iran, Customs of Iran and Damghan Pistachio Research Center were used. Also, to calculate the production costs, the questionnaire was completed through interviews with 10 major pistachio growers and only exporter of Damghan city. The result show that the production and export of pistachio in Damghan city has a relative advantage. However, in order to increase production and export of the pistachio crop, policies are proposed to increase mechanization,modify the structure of existing pistachio garden such as the using of appropriate rootstocks in garden, determination of male and female transplant in accordance with local conditions and the creation of large pistachio gardens.The result show that the production and export of pistachio in Damghan city has a relative advantage.However, in order to increase production and export of the pistachio crop, policies are proposed to increase mechanization, modify the structure of existing pistachio garden such as the using of appropriate rootstocks in garden, determination of male and female transplant in accordance with local conditions and The creation of large pistachio gardens.