فصلنامه اقتصاد کشاورزی
سال شانزدهم شماره 1 (بهار 1401)

Climate change led to reduced agricultural production and income in recent years. Farmers in Iran are very vulnerable to climate change such as drought and depletion of water resources. Despite the increasing vulnerability and poverty of farmers as a result of the spread of climate change, adopting climate-smart agricultural strategies have not been sufficiently implemented by Iranian farmers. In this study, the factors affecting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural strategies to climate change in Fars province were evaluated. Data were collected through a questionnaire from 443 farmers during the years 2019-2020 in four different climatic regions of Fars province. Accordingly, farmers' climate-smart agricultural strategies were estimated in three groups: Nutrient and Water-smart strategies, conserving or enhancing soil fertility-smart strategies, and a combination of these two segmentation strategies and a multinomial logit model to examine the factors affecting the acceptance of these strategies. Reviewing the existing literature, the factors affecting the adoption of climate-smart agricultural strategies including household characteristics, farm characteristics, socio-economic characteristics, social capital characteristics, and psychological characteristics were defined. The results showed that younger farmers with more access to credit and higher participation in social groups, as well as greater awareness, beliefs, and risk perception of climate change are more likely to adopt climate-smart agricultural strategies. On the other hand, larger farm sizes and higher farm incomes guarantee farmers' participation in adopting climate-smart agricultural strategies in the region. In addition, farmers who adopt smarter climate agricultural strategies later will be less likely to adopt water conservation strategies.

Agricultural production is subject to numerous risks, and agricultural insurance is one of the important risk management tools that can help producers in facing these devastating risks. Therefore, providing insurance services to agricultural producers is essential. However, the provision of insurance services continues when their providers are able to earn a commensurate return on the risk they take. Therefore, choosing the optimal insurance portfolio is very important for the insurer. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate the current insurance portfolio of insurers in Khorasan Razavi province as a sample and to investigate its potential for improvement using Markowitz theory. In this regard, historical data related to risk and return of insurance policies registered in the Agricultural Insurance Fund have been used and the optimal portfolio has been formed within the framework of the mentioned theory and compared with the current portfolio. The results show that the portfolio operated by the insurer is a completely non-optimal portfolio and has a good potential for improvement. Based on these results, it is possible to increase revenue significantly without the need to bear more risk. In addition, if the insurer is willing to take more risk, it can earn much more. Accordingly, such a change from the current portfolio to the proposed portfolio is recommended.

The problems that have arisen in the last few years show the importance of Price transmission in policy strategies. Price transmission is a market achievement of perfectly competitive and is one of its signs. Considering the changes in the demand for chicken meat and the importance of its market, the purpose of this article is to investigate the price transmission of this product between the four provinces of Tehran, Mazandaran, Gilan, and Isfahan. Monthly prices in selected provinces from 2003 to 1397 were used as research data. A panel threshold simultaneous equations system was used to evaluate how prices were transferred between selected markets. Pattern coefficients were estimated by the three-step least squares method. The results showed that price transmission in Tehran-Mazandaran and Mazandaran-Isfahan markets is symmetric. But in Isfahan-Mazandaran, Golestan-Isfahan, and Mazandaran-Golestan markets is asymmetry. Also, arbitrage in the market between Mazandaran-Golestan and Isfahan-Golestan is significant at the level of 1%. The results also showed that if the resulting differences in prices are bigger than the momentum of the price between two markets and also than the cost of the inter-provincial chicken transportation, the profit made on this exchange provides arbitragers an incentive to conduct this exchange between two provinces. The activity of arbitrators in chicken markets adjusts the price for a period. Based on the findings of this study, to examine the price transmission between markets, not only the changes but also the size of the changes should be considered.

The high dependence of developing countries on the agricultural sector and the impact of climate on the one hand, the technological and financial weakness of farmers on the other hand has doubled the importance of examining the relationship between climate change and agricultural productivity in these countries. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between climate change and total productivity factor (TFP) growth of rainfed barley in Iran.

In this regard, first, the growth of rainfed barley TFP for major producing provinces in the period 1378-1397 was calculated using the Solo model and integrated data technique. Then, by calculating the standard precipitation index (SPI), the effects of climatic variables (average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature and standard precipitation index) on TFP growth of rainfed barley were evaluated. Finally, using 18 climate change scenarios under HadCM2 and ECHAM4 models, TFP growth changes of rainfed barley were calculated.

During the study period, the average growth of rainfed barley TFP is positive and equal to 0.183. In addition, the average SPI index of major rainfed barley producing provinces indicates normal climatic conditions. Also in terms of climate, it varies between very severe drought and very high humidity. The study of the effects of climatic variables on the growth of rainfed barley TFP shows that the SPI index has a negative and significant effect and the minimum temperature has a positive and significant effect on the growth of rainfed barley TFP. Also, the growth rate of rainfed TFP due to climate change decreases by -0.08 on average.

According to the results, irregular rainfall at the wrong time can reduce the growth of TFP rainfed barley and on the other hand affect labor productivity. Due to the high sensitivity of rainfed barley to abnormal climatic conditions that reduce its productivity.

Food insecurity means limited or unreliable access to adequate and healthy food in terms of nutrition or limited ability to access food through socially acceptable means. Impairment of physical and mental health and chronic illness are potential consequences of food insecurity. Therefore, in the present study, using the raw data of household expenditure and income sampling plan, the food insecurity situation in urban and rural areas of Iran's provinces in 2019 was investigated. To assess food insecurity, the FGT index was calculated and different regions of the provinces were ranked according to these indicators and finally a food insecurity map was prepared. The results of food insecurity indices related to access to the amount of calories and protein required by the body showed that the prevalence of food insecurity in urban areas is higher than rural areas. The prevalence of food insecurity in urban areas in terms of access to calories and protein required by the body is 42.17 and 37.34%, respectively. These figures for rural areas are 35.93 and 33.06 percent, respectively. The results also show that the percentage of households that receive less protein than their daily requirement is lower than households that do not have access to the minimum calories needed by the body. Therefore, according to the results of the present study, it is suggested that the development and implementation of macro-policies to reduce food insecurity, especially in the provinces that are in a more unfavorable situation, should be considered. Also, monitoring the nutritional status of the community by collecting periodic information, stabilizing food prices, monitoring the trend of food insecurity changes at the macro level and at the provincial level and reporting to the relevant authorities can help them in planning to improve the health of different segments of society.

Insurance is one of the main tools for risk management in the agricultural sector. Risks related to the poultry industry impair chicken meat production in the short run and complicate planning in the long run. The continuous growth of the risk ratio and the daily increasing moral hazards are the most important reasons for changing the poultry insuring method. This study has used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and the Malmquist index to evaluate the effectiveness of negotiation-oriented approach for broiler insurance, using data and information of the Comprehensive System (CS) of the Agricultural Insurance Fund. According to the results, the insurance technology improvement has taken place only in 2013 and 2014, before the implementation of the new method. However, the progress of broiler industry insurance technology is evident in all years after the implementation of the negotiation-centered insurance plan. The research data shows an annual decline of 5.3% in the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in broiler insurance during 2011-2015. On the other hand, there are an annual growth of 22.7% in insurance performance after the implementation of the negotiation-centered insurance method for 2016-2020.