International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Jun 2016

This study considered the production economics of coffee in Pakuwa village development committee of Parbat district, Nepal. Household Survey was done in June 2014. Data collection was done using semi-structured pre-tested questionnaire administered on 40 coffee producers selected randomly. Gross margin analysis, profitability index and the benefit-cost ratio was used to analyze the production economics of coffee in the study area. The results revealed coffee cultivation as a profitable enterprise in the study area. This is reflected by the gross margin of NRs. 90205.43 per hectare, benefit-cost ratio of 3.84 and profitability index of 1.23. Coffee sector alone contributed 16.26 percent of total household income showing positive sign for commercialization. The number of productive plants and cost on sapling were the most significant factor affecting coffee production. While keeping other explanatory variables constant, production function analysis resulted one percent change in number of productive plants and cost of sapling would increase the yield of coffee by 0.894 and 0.151 percent respectively. Further, increasing return to scale was observed in coffee production with value 1.26. Farmers explained more income from coffee and easy to sell as the major reasons of its cultivation. Lack of irrigation and lack of detailed knowledge about improved coffee production technology were ranked as production constraints whereas; low price and lack of processing facility stood as marketing constraints of coffee in the study area. Study resulted positive economic significance of coffee and this shows immense need of Government, NGOs, traders, and other line agencies to lay efforts on production and marketing management such that its quality production and household income can be raised.

Nowadays, there is an agreement among organizations that reinforcing of education leads to the improvement of organizational performance. The emphasis on the human capital in organizations reflects the view that market values depend less on tangible resources, but more on intangible ones, particularly human resources. The main purpose of this study was to design a model for faculty members in public Agricultural Higher Education in Iran. A survey method was used to collect data from nine Public Agricultural Faculties in Iran. Samples were collected from faculty members using a simple random sampling method (n=284) and a questionnaire was used as the main research instrument to collect data. Reliability and validity were calculated using Structural Equation Modeling through LISREL software, version 8.54 (above 0.7). Finally, a model was developed and tested for faculty members in Agricultural Higher Education System in Iran. The findings showed that contextual variables (i.e. personal, organizational, social, educational, and professional development) had direct impacts on the process of Human Resource Development (HRD). Furthermore, personal and organizational development had direct and indirect impacts on HRD (R2 = 0.70).

Improving production efficiency is the main objective of government action to avoid efficiency losses and to increase the income of farmers. The aim of this study was to analyze performance levels of farms in the irrigated perimeter of Tadla in Morocco, according to the source of irrigation water. Thus, technical, allocative and economic efficiency were analyzed for farms in this area. To estimate the efficiency indices, the approach adopted is based on Data Envelopment Analysis method. Sixty samples of farms were chosen according to the mode of access to irrigation water. The results showed significant variability in technical, allocative and economic efficiency between the observed farms. The source of irrigation water is an important determinant of farm performance in the Tadla region. Thus, the average of economic efficiency varies between 45% and 83% according to the source of irrigation water. In terms of water valuation, farms that use only groundwater achieve a better value of irrigation water (2.19 MAD1 /m3) in comparison with those that combine between surface and groundwater and those which are limited to the use of surface water.

This paper aimed to evaluate Water Use Efficiency (WUE) indices for crops and horticulture productions. In doing so, after gathering data from 164 farmers, we investigated water withdrawal cost indices and monetary return per cubic meter of water through two econometric and managerial approaches . Besides, water shadow pricesand dry matters of per cub meter of water were calculated. The results revealed that the average monetary return per cubic metre of water is 3875.4 IRR (0.134 USD) and cost per cubic metre of well water equals 839.3 IRR (0.029 USD), four times more than the value of some current development projects of water resources. Finally, according to the findings, we suggested a corrected price trade term to adjust water monetary return indices.Control policies and government participation in funding of artificial recharge of undergorund aquifers projects were recommended as well.

In this study, water management allocated to the agricultural sector’ was analyzed using stochastic dynamic programming under uncertainty conditions. The technical coefficients used in the study referred to the agricultural years, 2013-2014. They were obtained through the use of simple random sampling of 250 farmers in the region for crops wheat, barley, melon, watermelon and ruby grapes under the scenarios of drought, wet, normal, and water required in the most sensitive growth stages. Production function and profit function were obtained from the yield-water-product function of crops using Eviews software. Expected net profit of the system and optimal allocation of water were also calculated based on the GAMS economic analysis software. The results revealed that 14% of the cases over the past 30 years had wet years (high), 47% of the time and that 39% had experienced drought (low) and normal (average) years. In the best case, i.e. with high current levels, respectively at, 58, 67, 54, and 48% of water requirements for these crops and, in the worst case (with low current levels), 47, 35, 49, 53 and 48% of the water requirements provided during the most sensitive growth stages. Moreover, the results showed that the cultivation of the ruby grape was the best product with the highest expected profit in normal and rainfall conditions. In general, when the expected value of net profit is positive, managers would act optimistically and they would promise the optimal level of water provided to the farmers. Conversely, when the net value is negative they would prefer to be more conservative and would promise a lesser amount of water provided to the farmers. Hence, if the promised water to the farmer is not wasted, he will choose the loss incurred from a lesser harvest.

The objective of this study was to model seasonal behavior of broiler price in Iran that can be used to forecast the monthly broiler prices. In this context, the periodic autoregressive (PAR), the seasonal integrated models, and the Box-Jenkins (SARIMA) models were used as the primary nominates for the forecasting model. It was shown that the PAR (q) model could not be considered as an appropriate method for modeling seasonal behavior of the broiler price. Results of seasonal unit root test indicated that the monthly prices of broiler follow a non-stationary stochastic seasonal process. Accordingly, the regression-based model is an appropriate modeling framework. While SARIMA is an alternative modeling approach, the RMSE of forecasting error suggested the superiority of the regression-based model over the SARIMA model. Therefore, the estimated parameters of the regression-based model can be used to predict the monthly prices of broiler in Iran.

The main purpose of this paper was to introduce an efficient algorithm for fault identification in fruits images. First, input image was de-noised using the combination of Block Matching and 3D filtering (BM3D) and Principle Component Analysis (PCA) model. Afterward, in order to reduce the size of images and increase the execution speed, refined Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) algorithm was utilized. Finally, for segmentation, fuzzy clustering algorithm with spatial information was applied on the compressed image. Implementation results in MATLAB environment and based on the gathered data by the author showed that the proposed algorithm contains a good capability in de-noising. Also, in the proposed method, identification accuracy of faulty regions in fruit was higher than other methods. The major advantage of the proposed method was its high speed which makes it appropriate for real time applications.

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the effective components of educational transformation in agricultural higher education system in Iran by a mixed study method. The statistical population includes all faculty members (N=361) teaching in agricultural college of Tehran, Tarbiat Modares and Shiraz University, and a sample of 186 faculty members (n=186) were selected by stratified random sampling method and finally 166 questionnaires were returned and analyzed. Data collection in this research was done in two general sections. Section one was a meta-synthesis method. In this method, effective components of educational transformation were identified according to investigation objectives, method of sampling, methodology, content analysis, and research results of 25 selected studies. The results of this analysis identified fivemain factors influencing educational transformation. These components included learning, education and teaching, competence, quality of education, and leadership. Section two was done in order to examine the hypotheses by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The Results of this section showed that new learning models, leadership styles and educational competence had significant effects on educational transformation.

The main objective of the present work was to study the factors affecting the deployment of knowledge management in Agriculture Bank of Qom Province. It was a causative-relational study in terms of data collection. Also, it was a field study, non-experimental in terms of variables control. Sample size was estimated by Morgan table and the data were collected by a questionnaire. The statistical society included manager, experts and assistants of Agriculture Bank in Qom Province including 250 people. Sample size was calculated (n = 152) by Morgan table. The reliability was estimated by a pretest with 20 questionnaires filled out by a statistical population similar the studied one. The validity was confirmed by experts whose advice was taken care of about modifying or replacing some questions. Finally, Cronbach's alpha was estimated for the questionnaire to be 0.81. To achieve research objectives, the descriptive statistics of frequency, mean, variance, and standard deviation and the inferential tests of correlation and multiple regressions were conducted by SPSS Statistical Software Package. Results revealed the significant relationship of knowledge management deployment with organization culture, knowledge sources, organization memory, and information technology at the one percent level with modified determination coefficient of 0.632. In other words, 63.2% of the variation of the dependent variable was accounted by independent variables (organization culture, knowledge sources, organization memory, and information technology).

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of forest road construction on the Soil Organic Carbon Stock (SOCS) in Ziarat Catchment. Therefore, soil samples were collected from five land use types including road construction, cultivated area, channel bank, pasture and forest land and soil organic carbon concentration and bulk density were measured in the samples and SOCS were calculated. The results showed that the forest road construction reduce SOCS. SOC stock was greatest in the forest land use and the total SOC stock under different land uses varied in order forest, pasture, cultivate, channel bank and road construction with 143, 136, 128, 36 and 29 Mg ha−1, respectively (p

This paper focuses on the amount of diesel consumption as one of the non-renewable energy sources consumed by the agricultural machinery and water pumps in wheat and corn farms in Dire County,Kermanshah Province, Iran. The population of the study was determined by Bartlett table. Stratified random sampling method and census was used for the selection of respondents. The sample was composed of 247 wheat growers, 235 corn growers, and 57 tractor drivers selected by Bartlett’s table. Combine drivers as well as farm irrigation diesel owners were selected by census (N=15, N=48, respectively). The data collection tool was a questionnaire and the data were analyzed by SPSS software package. The findings revealed that in wheat farms, soil preparation had the highest consumption of diesel by 49% and in corn farms inter culturing had the highest diesel consumption by 38%. Moreover, the amount of diesel consumed in 3600 ha wheat and a corn farm in Dire County was 403,852.6 lit/year equivalent to 15,346,399 MJ. Burning this amount of diesel produces about 1, 058,094 kg CO2/year. Overall, farm machinery, water pumping and irrigation for two major crops in the county are extremely reliant on nonrenewable fossil fuel resulting in large amount of CO2 emission. Hence, an aggressive and innovative policy is required to restructure and redesign energy system in agriculture sector at national and local levels. Finally, it seems that paradigm shift to sustainable agriculture and development of clean and renewable energy in Iran's agricultural sector is unavoidable.

This study examined the effects of climate change on food expenditure in rural household of Iran. Food expenditure is investigated as a function of average income of rural households, retail food price index and food expenditure for rural households, agricultural sown area and climate change. Here, the Stata11 software is used and data are from 26 provinces of the country for 10 years. Precipitation, temperature and relative humidity are considered as indicators for climate variables. The results indicated a positive and significant effect of average income of rural households, retail food prices, food expenditure of rural households with a lag and precipitation on the food expenditure of rural households. Agricultural sown area and relative humidity had no effect on the food expenditure of rural households and temperature had a significant and negative effect on the food expenditure of rural households. In the end, due to the impact that each of these variables explicitly have on food expenditure of rural households and implicitly on food security of rural households, suggestions for maintaining and improving food security of rural households is presented.

This study aimed to develop TAM model to explain adoption of information technologies process .Descriptive – correlation study was conducted and data were collected through a survey. Statistical population was West Azerbaijan Agricultural extension agents who 120 of them were selected randomly using the krejcie and Morgan table. A questionnaire was employed to measure the variables in the model. Its validity was confirmed by a panel of experts. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient ranged between from 0.704 to 0.816 show satisfied reliability. For data processing, partial least squares (PLS) method as a new approach to structural equation modeling was used. The results showed that among three variables for development of technology acceptance model including Job relevance, experience and organization willingness to invest, the first and second show significant effects. Thus Job relevance and experience as an external variable was added to the basic TAM. Other relations between variables in basic technology acceptance model in current study were also seen significant. Our developed TAM can explain 64% of the actual behavior of employee in information technology utilization. TAM is one of the most influential extensions of Ajzen and Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action (TRA) in the literature. The theories behind it assume that when a person forms an intention to act, that s/he will be free to act without limitation. While In the real world there will be many constraints, such as limited freedom to act. For example, people in organized working environments are forced to use most of the relevant applications irrespective of their opinion or attitude. In this research mentioned model was used as a strong model to predict actual use behavior that affected by three variables namely Job relevance, experience and organization willingness to invest.

The strategic planning of marketing and the application of marketing strategies for achieving sustainable competitive advantages are of the factors that help the survival of producers of agricultural organic products. Although, there are evidences of the growth of organic farming in Iran but, there are no useful information and proposals for making marketing strategies in organic production holdings for producers and traders. For this, we assessed the influence of three effective elements include marketing approach, pricing and the sale of organic products in Iran. The study was based on the factor analysis, explorative interview and structured questionnaire. The study population was composed of 20 experienced experts and 118 organic agricultural producers from the various regions include Tehran, Khorasan-e Razavi, Guilan, Khoozestan, Kerman, Kordestan, Qazvin and Isfahan for the periode of Jan 2014 to June 2015. It was found out that the main barriers to the development of organic products and their markets include inappropriate packaging, high transportation costs, the lack of unit manager and inconsistent strategy, market-making and customer-orientation, weak public advertisement, the lack of trust to organic brands at national level, and weak state support.