فصلنامه اقتصاد کشاورزی
سال پانزدهم شماره 1 (بهار 1400)

The role of the agricultural sector in ensuring food security, Employment, self-sufficiency, non-oil exports and currency has led to the prediction of this sector to become one of the basic goals of policymakers. Nowadays, predicting future events play an important role in decision-making process and it has significant importance for planners,policymakers. If policymakers have a clear vision of the future, they certainly can make better and more accurate decisions and achieve higher profits. On the contrary, for those who do not have a clear vision of the future, their decisions will inevitably hurt them. Therefore, it is necessary to predict the country's strategic sector so that managers and planners can provide appropriate policies to achieve self-sufficiency and improve the country's trade situation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to simulate and predict the production, import, export, supply and demand of the agricultural sector over the period 2017-2054.

Efficiency evaluation and performance analysis of agricultural water exploitation systems is so significant to utilize the optimal of resources and prevent the waste of them. In this respect, this paper is aimed to evaluate the efficiency of exploitation systems within the irrigation and drainage networks of Khuzestan province by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method. Based on the results, average efficiency scores of exploitation systems of exploitation companies of irrigation and drainage networks, production cooperatives, water users cooperatives, Farming joint stock and private companies are 0.906, 0.962 0.895.0.950 and 1.00, respectively. In water users cooperatives system with the lowest average efficiency, the irrigation network and contracts as inputs have the highest consumption. The efficiency of Maroon exploitation system and Keshtgaran exploitation system with 0.73 value was obtained as the lowest among all of exploitation systems. Cost and Beneficiaries have caused the highest rate of inefficiency on Maroon exploitation system and Keshtgaran exploitation system, respectively. According to the results, among exploitation systems which are under evaluation, all systems of private companies are efficient.

Assessing the potential effects of drought in agriculture and water resources management, as well as providing solutions to deal with it, is an important step in the development of agricultural activities. Therefore, in the present study the standardized precipitation index (SPI) to determine the different intensities of drought and its occurrence was used during the study period (2002-2018). Then, by using the Positive Mathematical Planning (PMP) model, the potential effects of drought on the cropping pattern and farmers' livelihoods of in the southern basin of Tehran province were analyzed. The required data are documentary and registered in the relevant government agencies which were collected in two sections, time series (2002-2018) and cross-section (2017-2018). The results showed that the probability of severe drought in the southern basin of Tehran province is about 6/25 percent. Decreasing the acrage of high consumption water products such as watermelon, corn, sunflower and increasing the acrage of wheat and barley are other obtained results under drought conditions in Tehran province. Decrease of 3/00 to 19/4 percent of farmers' gross profit and increase of 13/2 to 115/6 percent of the economic value of irrigation water are other consequences of this phenomenon under mild to severe intensities. According to the obtained results in this study, in order to reduce the risk of hydrological drought and farmers' exposure with this event in southern basin of Tehran province, in the first step it is recommended that the modification of optimal cropping patternin in order to reduce the acrage of water-filled products (such as sunflower and watermelon) and replace it with the acrage of products with higher profit to water ratio (such as corn and canola) be prioritized. In the next step, it is suggested that due to the elasticity of agricultural water input to price changes in the southern basin of Tehran province (ewater = -0/96), the correct implementation of water pricing policy in accordance with the trend of changes in the economic value of water input and observance of the principle equality consideration in drought conditions should be considered by the public sector.

Poverty reduction is one of the important goals of development programs. This study was conducted to investigate the factors affecting rural poverty in provinces of Iran during the years 2011-2018. Poverty Gap Index has been calculated as dependent variable. The log- log regression model of influencing factors on poverty was estimated using the cross section weighted least squares method. Results showed that rural poverty has been an unbalanced long- run phenomenon that has grown over time and covered more people. The coefficients of estimated model showed that the share of province in GDP, areas under cultivation, number of rural comprehensive health service centers and dummy variable of less poor provinces have had significant negative effect on poverty. The value added of agriculture sector, rural consumer price index, family size, trend, first lag of dependent variable and dummy variable of poorer provinces have had significant positive effect on poverty gap index. The negative effect of the share of province in GDP and areas under cultivation on poverty confirmed the important role of production infrastructures and economic opportunities in poverty reduction. Significant positive effect of the value added of agriculture sector can be an evidence of small contribution of villagers in value added of this sector. Based on the results of this study, it is suggested to avoid the concentration of investment, resources and production opportunities in richer provinces and to pay attention to balanced regional development to reduce poverty in poor provinces. Also anti-inflationary policies will reduce poverty in all regions. Since poverty has been a long-run and growing phenomenon in most regions, long- run planning in production and welfare infrastructures is needed to eradicate poverty.

Increasing inequality and concentration of incomes in the upper-income classes is the main reason for the decline in living standards of people in the lower-income classes. Therefore, adopting policies to combat rising inequality in income distribution will be directly related to reducing the spread of poverty in poorer communities and low-income groups. In this study, the effect of credit policy on income inequality in rural areas of Iran was evaluated using the approach of the autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and time series data from 1986-2018. The results showed that the implementation of credit policy has had a significant effect on reducing income inequalities in rural areas in the short and long run. Also, the results showed that increasing the real capital stock of the agricultural sector and increasing the share of income from rural living costs reduces income inequalities in rural areas in Iran. However, the real growth of the agricultural sector and subsidies for agricultural items were recognized as factors in increasing income inequality in rural areas of Iran. Finally, in order to reduce income inequality in rural areas of the country, pursuing and continuing the implementation of credit policy due to its sustainable and long-run effects on reducing inequality in rural income distribution in the country is the first policy recommendation in this study. In addition, facilitating capital increase processes in the agricultural sector with a focus on micro-beneficiaries is another policy recommendation in this study that can facilitate the implementation of credit policy by supporting the receipt of credit for micro-owners.

Since the 2009 Earth Summit, the importance of sustainability in order to protect the environment, cropping systems and food security has been emphasized as part of sustainability. In this regard, the present study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between food insecurity and agricultural sustainability in Gorgan County in the 2019-2020 year.

Data was collected based on two types of questionnaires of farmers and specialists (for weighting criteria and sub-criteria of sustainability). The coping strategy index was used to measure food security and analytical hierarchy process was used to measure agricultural sustainability. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the relationship between food insecurity and agricultural sustainability.

Based on the aggregated sustainability criterion, North Esterabad with a weight of 0.236 was selected as the most sustainable village. Ghorogh, Roshanabad, Anjirab and South Esterabad villages with weights of 0.199, 0.197, 0.195 and 0.173 are in the next priorities. According to the environmental criterion, South Esterabad with a score of 0.216, according to the economic criterion, North Esterabad with a score of 0.249 and according to the social criteria, Roshanabad with a score of 0.204 had the highest level of sustainability. Also, according to the coping strategy index, 14 households (4.67%) had food security, 211 households (70.33%) had poor food insecurity, 54 households (18%) had moderate food insecurity and 21 households (7 %) Experience severe food insecurity. There is also a strong negative correlation between food insecurity and overall, economic and environmental sustainability. Suggestion: Given the importance of agricultural sustainability in improving food security, it is suggested that policymakers design and implement policies in order to improve economics, social and environmental sustainability that have negative effects on food insecurity.