International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development
Volume:8 Issue: 1, Mar 2018

Food losses refer to edible food mass decrease throughout the human food chain. Food losses occurring at consumption stage are called food waste. Food Losses and Waste (FLW) represent one of the most critical social, economic and ecological challenges facing humanity, besides being also an ethical issue. FAO data show that roughly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. There are no precise and accurate data regarding food waste in Near East and North Africa (NENA) region. The review paper aims at providing insights about the extent of FLW in NENA region with a special focus on Arab countries and Iran. The paper explores linkages between food waste and food security. Moreover, it analyses the economic and environmental implications of FLW. FLW vary depending on food type, country and season. Generally speaking, postharvest losses are significant in this region for most of commodity groups. It is estimated that FLW amount to 34% of food supply in NENA region. FLW undermine the very foundations of food security and amount to major depletion of resources (e.g. water, land, energy) and produce needlessly greenhouse gases. They also represent a wasted investment that reduces farmers’ incomes and increase consumers’ expenses. Therefore, food waste reduction is crucial for improving the sustainability of the food supply chain and achieving food and nutrition security in the region.

The paper presents the articulated strategy of valorization, implemented by the international movement called Slow Food in Italy and abroad in order to reconsider the concept of agricultural profitability. In particular, the paper suggests profitability lays on the value markets recognize to agricultural production. In this perspective, the Slow Food strategy represents a good practice to be emulated because it strengthens the producers’ confidence, improves product culture among producers and consumers, and re-embeds local agricultural products into the hotbed of practices of society while mass consumption drives it to abandonment.

The study analyzed the socioeconomic determinants influencing the willingness of the agriculture undergraduates to participate in agripreneurship in Northwest, Nigeria. The study employed a questionnaire to obtain primary data. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 150 respondents from the universities under study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results show that a majority of the participants were male (68.7%), single (90%), within 21-25 years of age (52.6%), and had no any other tangible occupation (57.3%) besides study. Willingness to participate in agripreneurship was found to be positive among the respondents but not as primary occupation. Family economic status (ranked first) was the major socioeconomic determinants influencing the willingness of agriculture undergraduates to participate in agripreneurship. Examination of the relationship between selected socioeconomic determinants and willingness to participate in agripreneurship revealed a positive significant relationship with gender, community background, family background, family economic status, as well as with ethnicity. This clearly suggests that a number of socioeconomic determinants have considerable influence over willingness of agriculture undergraduates to participate in agripreneurship. The study, then, carries the implication that university agriculture training should be streamlined with today’s realities so as to stimulate the willingness for agripreneurship.

Water pricing is considered as one of the most important management tools of water resources, which can result in optimized allocation in the agricultural sector. In this regard, this study estimated the cost of water and the value of water in the farmlands covered by the selected manmade ponds (MMPs) within the Alborz project area in Mazandaran Province using the engineering economics methods and production function calculation. The required data were collected via a survey conducted in 2013-2014 growing season. Sample size was estimated to be 198 people. After studying various production functions, transcendental production function was chosen as the best functional form. Next, the economic value of water for rice in the basin covered by the selected MMPs was calculated to be 19,065 IRR per m3 using an estimation of the production function. In addition, the cost of water per m3 in the selected MMPs was obtained as to be 868 IRR at the interest rate of 22% and 394 IRR at the interest rate of 12%. Comparing the cost of water with the economic value of water demonstrated that the economic value of water is higher than the cost of water in the selected MMPs, and that both of them had great difference with the price paid by farmers. The implication is that the existing gap between the real price and the price paid by farmers should be filled by the economical pricing of water.

Citrus production has a great importance and position in Iran. The growth and sustainability of the agriculture sector is impossible without appropriate and effective risk identification and management. In this study, the main risks of citrus gardens were identified based on the Delphi method through questionnaires completed by 16 experts. Then, using the TOPSIS technique, the risks involved in the horticultural industry of Mazandaran Province were prioritized during 2010-2016 and the most important risk of Mazandaran gardens was selected based on the Shannon unweighted entropy matrix. The results showed that the most important horticultural risks were related to the risks of pests and diseases, price, damage, and production, respectively. In addition, the lowest risks were related to technical, labor and credit risks, respectively. Therefore, the results indicated the significant influence of the risks of pests and diseases, price and loss in horticulture. Among the risks of pests and diseases, mealy bugs, red mites and aphids with 76, 73 and 70 percent, respectively, were of the highest risk and risks arising from financing, purchasing the product and the damage caused by drip irrigation and emitters were of the lowest risk. The risk exposure represented that risk management should be considered in these fields. In this regard, it is essential to make major reforms in risk management areas involved in orchards. Thus, the planners and policymakers must consider this issue.

This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of energy consumption and economic analysis of different watermelon cultivation systems in Fars Province of Iran. Watermelon production systems were classified into five systems, namely, custom tillage (group 1), conservation tillage (group 2), traditional planting (group3), semi mechanized planting (group 4), and mechanized planting (group 5). Data were collected from 317 watermelon producers from different parts of the province through face to face interviews. Multi-Layer Perceptron artificial neural networks were used to model the energy flows of watermelon production. The results showed that the greatest energy consumption belonged to mechanized planting system with the value of 81317.72 MJha-1 and with the productivity of 0.61 kgha-1and energy use efficiency of 1.17. Clustering function with three inputs (human resources, machines and diesel fuel) showed that the difference between groups 2 and 4 is more than the other groups. The least energy consumption belonged to the conservative agriculture as78163.86 MJha-1and the energy productivity and energy use efficiency about 0.64 kgha-1 and 1.22, respectively. The results of energy modeling showed that an ANN model with 9-10-1 structure was determined to be optimal for energy flow modeling of this system. Generally, it was concluded that the artificial neural network models can be applicable to prognosticate the energy flows of watermelon production. From an economic point of view, the least net profit belonged to traditional planting with the value of 2618.14$, and the most net return belonged to mechanized planting with the value of 2752.88$/ha.

The purpose of this research was to determine knowledge management in the empowerment of the experts of Agricultural Organization in Ilam County of Iran. The statistical population was composed of all employees with the organizational positions of expert or higher in Agricultural Organization of Ilam (N=150). A self-designed questionnaire was used as data collection tool whose face and content validities were confirmed by a panel of experts and whose reliability was estimated to be 0.89 by Cronbach’s alpha. Data were analyzed by SPSS20 in two groups of descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, and coefficient of variations) and inferential statistics (Spearman test of correlation and multiple regression analysis). Results of regression analysis showed positive, significant relationship of knowledge exchange, knowledge generation, and number of training courses with people’s empowerment so that they, together, accounted for 40% of the variations of dependent variable.

Sustainable agriculture is a holistic approach to produce food, fiber, feed and fuel in a way that does not damage the environment and also must meet the needs of the present and future population of the world, while considering agro-ecosystem health, social and economic equity and profitability. Therefore, the sustainable agriculture cannot be isolated from the concept of sustainable development in any country or region. The current survey was conducted in order to study the sustainability of agricultural systems in Golestan Province in the north of Iran during the period of 2002-2011. The required data were obtained from formal statistical database. The total numerical value of sustainability was calculated for individual years using 21 different indexes. Because of the diverse nature of the selected indexes and their wide range, they were normalized to facilitate their comparison. The results show that the agricultural sustainability has been increased significantly over the studied period. The lowest value of sustainability was observed in the first year of the studied period (i.e., 2002) but the highest value was calculated for 2009 and thereafter the sustainability of agro-ecosystem has decreased slightly. The improvement of sustainability could be attributed to the application of less chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, higher water and nitrogen use efficiencies, higher yield of different crops, especially dry land crops and the higher cultivation area of nitrogen fixing species.

Social health is essential to social development of rural communities, especially rural women, in order to promote their welfare as well as their human and social capital. The present research was applied in terms of objective, and it was implemented using different approaches to examine the social health of rural women and its determinants in Kermanshah Province, Iran. The research method was descriptive-correlational conducted based on documentary and field method (questionnaire was used as the research instrument). The statistical society consisted of rural women (N=209) of Ghale Shahin County, which is located in the west of Kermanshah Province, out of which 209 women were selected by multistage sampling method. 209 questionnaires were distributed among the study population, and 187 complete questionnaires were analyzed. Return rate of the questionnaires was equal to 89%. The results showed that the majority of women had a moderate level of social health, communication skills, and social support. It was also found that there was a positive significant correlation between TV watching, the amount of leisure time, the level of communication, and social health of rural women. Results also showed that leisure time, TV watching, and communication skills altogether explained 49 percent of the social health variance of the rural women in the study area. As communication skills and social health of rural women were at the moderate level, and considering the results of the study, it is recommended that organizations in charge of social health of the rural women, such as rural women's social health bases, national youth organization, social affairs deputy of municipality and/or rural development agents as social worker, develop educational content of social health promotion courses with participation of rural women.