مجله اقتصاد و توسعه کشاورزی
سال سی و پنجم شماره 4 (پیاپی 53، زمستان 1400)

Water is one of the most valuable resources available to mankind. Today, international communities are aware of the importance of water for sustainable economic growth in the present and future. In this study, the effect of reducing water resources on economic sectors and agricultural sub-sectors was investigated through a social accounting matrix model. The results are presented in the form of absolute and relative effects. The direct and indirect impacts of a 10 and 50 percent reduction in water resources have been a decrease in the production of 3.4 and 22 percent from the viewpoint of a demanding, 4.7 and 24 percent from the viewpoint of a supplier, for agricultural products. From the perspective of a demanding, a 10 percent reduction in water resources has led to 10.5 percent production reduction of other economic sectors. The relative effects of 10 percent water reduction from a supplier’s point of view indicate that the greatest reduction was in water and other resources sectors. The relative reduction in water resources from the viewpoint of demanding has the greatest impact on water and veterinary sectors. From the perspective of the absolute effects on the demanding and the supplier, the vulnerability of urban households as a result of water resource reduction has been greater than that of rural households. Considering the relative impacts on a supplier, the impact of reduced income is greatr on urban low-income households than low-income rural households. Relative reduction of water resources from the perspective of demanding has a greater impact on capital factor than on labor factor

Due to the importantance of sugar in daily consumption of Iranian households, governments annually store sugar as a strategic reserve. Therefore, managing and timing adjustment for the inventory of this product is essential in its ability to compete in markets, modifying the temporal and spatial distribution of products and inputs in economic subdivisions. In recent years, at national scale there was extra sugar in warehouses and a few cases of shortages in stock were exception. Higher sugar production along with lower sale, will increase the costs, so the aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting sugar surplus and its export in Iran data time searies 1991-2017. In this study our results showed that sugar beet and sugar price as product price did not play a decisive role in stock surplus. Therefore, the stock surplus can neither be the result of price policies nor it be resolved through price policies. It seems that the government should adopt other policies, such as adjusting the timing of import decisions, resolving conflicts between government objectives, and providing strategic reserves from domestic products and gradual elimination of imports, support factories for improving and upgrading equipment, and help sugar beet producers to achieve cheaper product rather than using price policies related to sugar and sugar beet prices.

Energy products are the main sources of emissions for most of the pollutants in Iran. However, for some pollutants like Methane (CH4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O), the production process, including the agricultural production process, plays a significant role. The aims of this study were to analysis the emissions intensity of the selected pollutants and to introduce the determinants in Iranian agricultural sector. The emission intensity in the agricultural sector was decomposed into its components using decomposition analysis. Then, the regression analysis was applied to investigate the emission intensity determinants. The selected pollutants are Carbon Dioxide (CO2), CH4, and N2O emitted from agricultural production process. The applied data cover 1973-2016. The findings showed that CH4 emission intensity has been decreasing over the study horizon by 3.9% annually. For N2O, the corresponding value was 2.6%. Based on the results, output level in agricultural sectors is an important driving factor in the emission intensity. It was found that 1% increase in livestock output level is expected to increase CH4 emission intensity by 0.9% while it will dampen the N2O emissions intensity by more than 3.3%. By contrast, the same percentage of increase in the output level of agronomy and horticultural subsector will induce an increase of 3.3% in N2O emission intensity and will reduce the CH4 emission intensity more than 0.9%. Macroeconomic variables including urbanization and trade openness failed to affect the agricultural emission intensity significantly. The emission intensity of all pollutants, measured in CO2 equivalent, has been decreasing over the study period by 3.5% annually. It was also found that, in terms of aggregated emission, output expansion in livestock and forestry sectors may induce higher emission intensity, while agronomy and horticultural output expansion can reduce the emissions intensity. Given that the output level plays a significant role in emission intensity while the macroeconomic variables have nothing to do with emission intensity, the measures taken to reduce the emission intensity in the agricultural sector should be sector-specific. Moreover, the measures should focus on each subsector individually.

One of the most important economic policies in most countries is to support producers or consumers through subsidies. The category of green subsidies has been proposed in the direction of agricultural development, which is in line with the law on targeted subsidies, but in a real way. Green subsidies belong to farmers and are used to boost business and industry in the agricultural sector. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of Iran's accession to the World Trade Organization by applying a simulated green subsidy policy on the variables of employment, investment, and value added in the agricultural sector, which is designed in the form of 20%, 50% and 100% scenarios. The model was calibrated using the social accounting matrix of 2011 and the baseline scenario (0% of green subsidies). GAMS software was used to analyze the data in this research. The results show an increase in employment in the agricultural sector during the effects of Iran's accession to the World Trade Organization and by applying the green subsidy simulation policy, in 20, 50 and 100% scenarios. Also, the implementation of green subsidy policy has led to an increase in investment in the agricultural sector.This is  due to the increased production in this sector and as a result, increase in the use of intermediate inputs. The results obtained from the mentioned shocks show that value added in the agricultural sector has an upward trend, which is due to the increase in the use of factors of production in this sector.

This paper evaluates the effect of water scarcity and climatic conditions on farmers' irrigation decisions in the production of major crops including wheat, barley, cotton, sugar beet, and alfalfa in North-Khorasan province. Farmers’ irrigation decisions are defined with a management model composed of equations of the share of irrigated land, technology adoption, and the irrigation frequencies, which investigated the effect of water scarcity indicators and climatic factors, farm water supply method, land characteristics, and farmers’ demographic features. For this purpose, the required data were collected from the 380 questionnaires, completed by farmers in cultivation year of 2017-2018. Then, the equations of the management model were estimated using fractional logit, binomial logit, and OLS methods. The results indicated that economic and physical scarcity of water resources, climatic conditions of temperature and precipitation, severe events of frost and heat, and drought have noticeable impact on farmers’ irrigation decisions. Farmers try to reduce the damage caused by climate change and water scarcity by deciding to irrigate their farms and adopting new irrigation technologies. Also, the type of water sources, i.e. surface and groundwater, irrigation method, soil quality of cultivated land, and land size have significant effects on their decisions. In regions without available surface water resource, the cultivation areas of irrigated land are declined. Also, due to water scarcity, farmers are more willing to invest on new technologies to improve irrigation efficiency. In the farms with higher soil quality, improved cropland direction and slope, and resource availability, farmers are more willing to invest on new irrigation methods and increase irrigation frequencies. Therefore, the implementation of policies on improving land quality and cropland integration can increase the acceptance of new technologies, and reduce the water usage. In addition, farmers’ demographic characteristics such as experience, tenure, and education influence their decisions for irrigation. Creating suitable conditions for the education and training of farmers will increase farmers’ awareness of new agricultural methods and the importance of water resources. Findings of this study provide vision on – how of farmers reaction against crop production systems as well as mitigation policies to confront climate change impacts.

Efficient Asset allocation and investment portfolio selection are among the most critical and challenging issues in investment management and a continuous concern for investors. When investors invest in the capital market, they expect their portfolio to perform well. Therefore, this study determines the optimal stock portfolio of agricultural companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE). Thirty-two most important agriculture companies in the (TSE), with monthly data from 2014-2020, were selected from Iran's two most essential agriculture industries, the food and beverage industries, and the sugar industry. Two portfolios for the food and beverage industry and sugar industry goals: minimizing portfolio variance and maximizing portfolio return using the Markowitz model with two different scenarios and applying two minimum investment constraints of 1% and optimized maximum investment of 20% without considering these two constraints. The efficiency, variance, and Sharp ratios are also calculated. The results showed that both food and beverage industry portfolios and the sugar industry portfolios became more efficient when optimized to maximize portfolio returns. The result also indicates the food and beverage industry was more efficient than the portfolio of the sugar industry. In this portfolio, the amount of investment for the shares of Salmin Company was 86.7% and for Mehram Company was 13.3%.

Agricultural and food industry exports are one of the strategies for export development and sustainable economic growth in developing countries. Since Iran has been among the top ten countries in the export of tomatoes and tomato paste in recent years, the purpose of this article was to compare the global market structure of these two products as two links in the tomato supply chain and calculate the revealed comparative advantage of their exports in the world and the target countries. According to the results, the global market structure of both products in the period 2010-2018, despite the high share of the top four market powers, has been an open oligopoly for most of the years, which indicates a small share of the most competitors and high competition between them. However, due to the large share and stability of market leadership, it is unlikely that small countries will be able to capture the share of large countries. Therefore, it is suggested that Iran, with an average share of 1.61 percent in the tomato market and 5.30 percent in the paste market, prioritize a number of markets in which it has more competitiveness for market penetration, market development, and branding. On average, exports of tomatoes and tomato paste to Turkmenistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan have had the greatest comparative advantage for Iran. It is proposed to prioritize competition, market development, and branding in a number of markets in which it has competitiveness and stability based on the revealed comparative advantage index, including Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. It is worth mentioning that due to the higher comparative advantage of tomato paste compared to tomato, its higher added value, more branding, and storage and transportation capabilities, it is recommended, with the development of investment in food processing industries and the completion of supply chain and marketing. Development of the export market of tomato paste should be a priority of the country.

Modern irrigation systems are considered as a way to both respond to the effects of climate changes and improve the water security. Applying such systems, save the water used in farming activities and consequently made some environmental challenges in terms of increasing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Although some recent studies analyzed the relationship between water and energy in the agricultural irrigation systems, considering the objectives on productivity, adaptation, and mitigation in a cropping pattern optimization problem is necessary. Climate-Smart agriculture as a strong programming concept, addresses these three objectives and has created the potential for a "triple-win" solution. This study is an effort to fill the study gap on triple-win solution in modern irrigation by developing an integrated economic-hydrological-environmental model called WECSAM at the basin level using a hydrological model called WEAP. For this purpose, a multi-objective optimization model has been developed with the concepts of water footprint, energy footprint, and the greenhouse gas emissions in the context of CSA. We applied the model to the northern region of Bakhtegan basin called Doroodzan irrigation network located in Iran. The result of the WECSAM model indicated that by simultaneously optimizing the conflicting objectives of maximizing profit and minimizing water footprint, energy footprint, and CO2 emissions, as compared to the single-objective model of maximizing economic profit, the water footprint decreases by 8.2%, Energy footprint decreases by 21.2%, CO2 emissions decreases by 6.9% and profit decreases by 7.4%. The share of each system in irrigating the water-smart, energy-smart, and climate-smart cropping pattern is as follow: 54% for drip system, 26% for semi-permanent sprinkler system, 11% for surface systems, 8% for center-pivot, and <1% for classic permanent sprinkler system.