جواد حسین زاد

Rice is a crucial agricultural product, and enhancing its productivity is essential for increasing production. This study aims to analyze the total factor productivity growth of rice production in Iran from 2000 to 2020. Using parametric (stochastic frontier analysis) approaches, the research evaluated the rice productivity growth and its components, including scale and technological changes. Based on the estimated Translog Cost Function, the annual total factor productivity growth was 2.1%, with positive technological change as the primary driver of these improvements. To further enhance productivity, the study recommends utilizing improved seeds, modern machinery, fertilizers, and nutritional solutions during rice cultivation. Additionally, the research suggests the application of parametric approaches in future studies to assess the impact of technological changes on crop yields.

The growing population and increasing demand for agricultural products, including protein products such as chicken meat due to limited resources, have made it necessary to improve the productivity of inputs. Since the technological change is one of the significant components of productivity change, therefor, the present study was conducted to evaluate the trend and nature of technological change in the Iranian poultry industry.

For this purpose, required data were collected from 27 provinces during the period 1996-2017. In the present study, a cost function approach is used as a basis for estimating technological change using panel data. Technological change may be neutral or biased, depending on how the relationship between inputs is affected. The estimation is based on an output and multi-input Translog cost function. The Translog function has the advantage of being a flexible functional form. The parameters of the cost function were estimated on the basis of the model system including the cost function and four of the five share equations using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE). The estimation was performed imposing the normal symmetry conditions. The F-Limer test is used to measure whether the data are panel or pooled. Then the Hausman test is then used to determine the use of the fixed or random effects model. In order to estimating the system of equations, one of the equations of input cost share is eliminated and all cost function equations and share of input demand are estimated simultaneously. In the model used, the price of all inputs was divided by the price of one-day-old chickens.

The estimation of the models performed relatively well. There was a very high degree of explanation, and most of the parameters had the expected sign. The estimation gave a very high degree of explanation, so that the value of R2 was equal to 0.96. The rate of technological change in some provinces that used the latest technology was above the national average. A negative sign in technological change indicates a decrease in the growth of production costs over time. Thus, it can be seen that the improvement of technology, the use of new production methods as symbols of technology, has reduced the cost of the poultry industry. Using the original breed of day-old chickens, poultry feed and high-quality materials, benefiting from efficient heating and cooling system are among the symbols of technological change. This shows that by using different forms of technology, poultry units have been able to increase the amount of chicken meat production. The rate of technology change has been declining until 2014 and reached its minimum in that year. That is, in 2014, compared to other years, the cost of producing each unit of chicken meat in poultry farms in different provinces of the country has decreased. The results of pure technological change showed that in all years under review, the amount of neutral technological change was positive and its average was 0.93. In general, it can be said that the process of changing pure technology over time has increased the production cost. The results of changing the input biased technological change showed that its average values were -0.26. Thus, it can be said that in the production of broiler chicken, technological developments have led to savings in production factors. the average rate of technology change was -1.61 percent over the mentioned time period, which means that in the study period the rate of cost change of production units has been decreased. Since cost elasticity was less than one (0.37), so the production is faced with the increasing return to scale. Therefore, the reduction in the cost causes economic savings in the production process.

According to the results of this research, the technology has changed in order to use more poultry feed; In other words, the technological change in the Iranian poultry industry is energy and labor saving. The results of cost elasticity, which was less than one, showed that product production in these units has an upward return to scale, so it confirms the existence of economies of scale in the poultry industry. Finally, it is suggested that the poultry industry utilizes the new technology and increases the production scale in order to access comparative advantage.

Honey is a healthy, nutritious and natural food that contains minerals, enzymes, and vitamins that give a person nutritious and organoleptic properties. It is produced on all five continents and its consumption varies from country to country due to cultural reasons and eating habits (FAO, 2022). Honey production in the world has increased from 771,114 tons in 1971 to 1,770,119 tons in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 1.84 percent (Knoema, 2022). Honey plays an effective role in ensuring global food security, and its market structure is dictated by its production efficiency. Given the limited resources of the agricultural sector, the optimal use of natural resources by improving technological efficiency in honey production would help ensure sufficient food for the increasingly growing world population (kavand et all., 2014; Hosseinzad & Koopahi, 1999). One of the factors affecting the efficiency of honey production is competitive and efficient markets. Therefore, the main objective of the present study is to determine the structure of the honey market in the provinces that produce this product and its relation to the technical efficiency of the producers.

This study uses the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) to study the market structure of honey-producing provinces in Iran. The Herfindahl-Hirschman index is calculated by squaring the market share of each competing production unit in the industry and then summing the resulting numbers. For this purpose, two different scenarios are considered. In the first scenario, the HHI was calculated based on the share of production of the counties and in the second scenario, it was calculated based on the number of apiaries in each county. To estimate the technical efficiency, the stochastic frontier Cobb-Douglas production function was used. For this purpose, first, the HHI values were considered as inefficient function variables and then the inefficiency function along with the Cobb-Douglas frontier function using maximum likelihood method was estimated and the technical efficiency values of the provinces were calculated. The data used in this study for 2019-20 have been obtained from the results of the census of Iranian apiaries. Excel2013 software was used to calculate Herfindahl-Hirschman index values and Stata15 software was used to estimate the Cobb-Douglas stochastic frontier production function.

Our findings show that the mean value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index based on the first scenario in 2019 is 0.23 and in 2020 is 0.24. Therefore, Iran’s honey market during the studied years turns out to be monopolistic competition. The mean value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index according to the second scenario for 2019 and 2020 was calculated as 0.16 and 0.17, respectively, which indicates that the country's honey market was competitive during the years under review. According to the results of Cobb-Douglas Stochastic frontier production function, inputs including; apiary, labor and hive have a positive and significant impact on honey production. The average efficiency during 2019-20 according to the first scenario is 61.2% and according to the second scenario is 64.2%. According to the first and second scenarios, it is possible to increase the efficiency by 38.8% and 35.5%, respectively. The results of the inefficiency function also confirmed that increasing the value of the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (i.e. increasing the degree of monopoly and distance from the competitive market) has a positive effect on inefficiency (negative effect on efficiency).

In conclusion, the results indicated that Iran’s honey market in recently years was has changed to monopolistic situation. This event has caused to decrease the efficiency of apiaries. So it can be possible to increase the efficiency of apiaries through stablishing competitive structure in honey market. In this case motivating for investment in modern production technologies and related industries can help to competitive circumstances in the honey market. market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency market structure and technical efficiency

Excessive and undesirable extraction of water resources in many agricultural areas of Iran, especially Marand Plain as one of the agricultural poles of East Azerbaijan province, has revealed the necessity of optimal allocation of limited water resources and the necessity of different irrigation strategies for each crop. Accordingly, this study aimed at determining the optimal cropping pattern of crops with emphasis on water resources limitation in Marand Plain. For this purpose, a fractional programming model with multiple objectives was used to evaluate the relative efficiency of agricultural sustainability. According to the study results, the optimal pattern of sustainable cultivation of the proposed model would reduce the gross income of farmers in the short run, compared with that of the linear programming model; also , based on the results of the model, the water consumption deficit programming model would be done so that there might be no shortage of water in different months while the consumption of harmful chemicals such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides would be at its minimum aa well as eliminating the crops which produce less gross profit than that of the water use pattern from the current cropping pattern and including the crops with low economic cost and low water requirement such as saffron which are compatible with the region's climate. Accordingly, the role of agricultural extension in training modern methods of irrigation, education of scientific agricultural production methods and the role of agriculture in the appropriate use of water saving technologies, the use of saved water in products with higher returns while increasing the area under cultivation such as saffron are more evident to achieve the sustainable agriculture.

Energy input is one of the main factors of extracting water from groundwater resources. Therefore, pricing policies related to energy carriers affect the cost of water extraction and it also affects the amount of water extraction. In the past years, one of the reasons that has put more pressure on groundwater resources is the inappropriate subsidy policies for energy carrier prices. Given the close relationship between energy carriers prices and the costs of groundwater extraction, in the present study, it was tried to investigate the effect of energy carriers' subsidies decreasing on the amount of groundwater consumption, cropping patterns and agricultural income using the dynamic programming model in Shabestar plain. This plain is one of the critical areas in terms of groundwater resources in Iran. The results showed that decreasing energy carriers' subsidies caused extraction reduction of water from groundwater resources. For example, a 25 and 50 percent reduction in energy carrier subsidies would reduce groundwater extraction by about 4.5 and 6.5 million cubic meters per year, respectively. Also, areas under cultivation of some high water using and low-income products decrease and cropping patterns change toward more high-income products such as onions, apples and walnuts. The results indicated that adopting appropriate energy carrier subsidy policies could be useful for improving groundwater extraction conditions.

Trade liberalization of agricultural products and its effect on food prices, because of the importance of food in the household consumption basket, is one of the most important goals of governments for public access to health and food security. The present study investigated the effect of trade liberalization on domestic food prices in Iran. In this context, the single-equation error correction model (SEECM) was applied using the required time series data during 1989-2019. The results show that in the short-term, only increases in global food prices, liquidity, and exchange rates significantly affect domestic food prices. However, domestic food prices show more reaction to exchange rate fluctuations than to world prices. The estimated long-run equilibrium relationship demonstrated that world food prices have a positive and trade liberalization has a negative effect on domestic food prices. In addition, in the long run, the effect of liquidity on the domestic food price of food is more than other factors. The estimated error-correction term indicates that in the long run, if a shock occurs to the domestic food price, the domestic market can adjust it by only 35% annually. Considering the fluctuations of global prices and exchange rates, and their impacts on domestic prices, it is necessary to pay attention to these fluctuations in revising trade policies.

Climate change is one of the main issues in the 21st century and has been felt in many regions of world. The greatest impact of climate change is on the water resource sector. Ajichay, as one of the main agricultural areas and a source of water consumption around the Lake Urmia, has lost its efficiency as the supplier of water and is considered as the center of crisis due to changes in the climate, lack of precipitation, and human factors. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate the impacts of water resources management scenarios for adaptation of climate change on water resources, cropping patterns and profits of farmers using a hydro-economic model. The HadCM3 model and LARS-WG downscaling were used to generate daily climatic data under the emissions of A2 scenario. The results showed that the average rainfall decreased in 38% under A2 emission scenario during 2018-2050 period. In the next period of 2018-2050, the average annual temperature will also increase by 2.5 °C compared to the baseline period. Changes in the cropping area due to climate change show that among the studied crops, bean had the highest reduction in cultivation, which stemmed from its high-water requirement. Results showed the profit in all the sub-bases had a rise after increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. Thus, applying increasing efficiency scenario, in addition to more useful and efficient use of allocated water, will also increase farmers' profits which offer a better situation than the other scenarios. Overall, the findings of the current study revealed that without changing the management strategies there would be a considerable reduction in water resource in near future. The analysis of scenarios revealed that policies alone cannot compensate for water problems and there is a need for plenty of scenario for optimum results.

This study investigated the basin sustainability in the baseline and climate change status. Then the effects of water resources management scenarios such as agricultural water reducing, increasing irrigation efficiency and increasing the water price on sustainability indicators were investigated.

A hydro-economic model was used to evaluate the effects of climate change on hydrological and economic variables. Modeling of hydrologic behavior was performed by WEAP-MABIA model and economic behavior using quadratic risk programming. The LARS-WG downscaling model was used to simulate climate change under three future emission scenarios (A2, A1B and B1), for the period 2020-2050. Agricultural sustainability was evaluated using performance criteria such as reliability, resilience, vulnerability and the irrigation water deficit index.

Evaluation of the sustainability indicators in the current situation indicates the instability of water resource and under climate change conditions, the hydrological basin status will be more critical that it goes from 0.86 in the basin situation to 0.72 under A2 climate change scenario. Implementing water resource management scenarios improves the sustainability indicators compared to climate change and the largest increase is related to the increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. In this scenario, the average of agricultural sustainability compared to climate change increases by 11.1% and irrigation water deficit index decreases by 26.6%, which It indicates the improvement of the region sustainability.

Due to the high effectiveness of the increasing irrigation efficiency scenario, it was recommended to increase irrigation efficiency by changing irrigation technology and using modern irrigation methods.

Given the limited available water resources, the conflict-laden issues of water allocation have become a challenging issue for planners and water consumers. The existence of different types of uncertainties and climate change conditions in the water resources systems intensify the complexity of the optimal allocation process of water resources in the agricultural field. Therefore, In the present study, it is tried to optimally allocate water resources in Marand watershed by developing a mathematical planning model that is capable of dynamics and uncertainty conditions both in the parameters of objective functions and in constraints.

In this study, an uncertainty-based interactive multi-stage stochastic programming (UIMSP) approach is proposed by incorporating the fractile criterion method and chance-constrained programming within a multi-stage decision-making framework for agricultural water resource management in various planning horizon. A two-period scenario tree with different probabilities for violating constraints (α) and various satisfactory levels of the objective function (β) were selected.

The results indicates that the minimum and maximum benefits of the system are [46.6, 983.6] × 1010 (Rials) and [699.7, 1483.1] × 1010 (Rials) when α=0.01  and , β=0.9 , respectively. In addition, an increase in satisfactory levels of the objective function (β) led to a gradual decrease in both upper and lower bound of the total net benefits at each given probability level of violating constraint (α), while any change in probability of constraint violation (α) resulted in creating a significant change in the system profits. Also, the results of the UIMSP model show that water scarcity is observed in different scenarios due to insufficient water resources in Marand watershed. However, according to the results, in the second period, despite the decrease in the amount of water available, the amount of water shortage has decreased with increasing irrigation efficiency. For example, under medium flow level, the amount of surface and groundwater shortages in the first period is 43.6% and 32.5%, respectively, while it is reduced by [36.9, 24.5] and [24.5, 0] percent in the second period.

The results can help decision-makers examine potential interactions between risks related to the stochastic objective function and constraints. Also, increasing irrigation efficiency and upgrading irrigation systems are among the main strategies that can provide an economic benefit to farmers while reducing environmental damage.

The limited resources of production make the need to address the productivity and efficiency of agricultural units including wheat fields more and more apparent. Considering that Ahar County accounts for ten percent of the rainfed wheat cultivation area in East Azerbaijan province of Iran, the present study was conducted to investigate the profit efficiency of rainfed wheat and its effective factors in this county. For this purpose, the necessary data was collected from 217 wheat farmers in the cropping year of 2019-20. The results of estimating the translog stochastic frontier profit function along with the inefficiency function showed that the price of seed, labor, machinery, manure, herbicide, pesticide and area under cultivation as fixed inputs had significant effects on the profit from wheat production. The mean profit efficiency for all farmers was estimated to be 42/3 percent and some 66.5 percent of the farmers had a profit efficiency of less than fifty percent. In addition, the variables such as having highly educated family members, crop insurance, presence of pest in the field and harvesting method had significant effects on the efficiency of the studied wheat farmers. According to the results, paving the ground for easy and on-time access to required inputs and their optimal allocation as well as encouraging the farmers to use crop insurance might be suggested as effective measures to increase the profit efficiency of wheat farmers in the studied area.

In recent years, the problem of water scarcity is becoming one of the most challenging issues with the economic development and population growth that have involved many sectors due to its importance and economic status and has received increasing attention from governments and international research organizations. This emphasizes the need for optimal allocation of mentioned resources to balance socio-economic development and save water. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop an uncertainty-based framework for agricultural water resources allocation and calculate the amount of water shortage after allocation and also risk evaluation of agricultural water shortage. The developed framework will be applied to a real case study in the Marand basin, northwest of Iran. Perception of the amount and severity of risk on the system can be a good guide in the optimal allocation of resources and reduction of damage.

Since various uncertainties exist in the interactions among many system components, optimal allocation of agricultural irrigation water resources in real field conditions is more challenging. Therefore, introduction of uncertainty into traditional optimization methods is an effective way to reflect the complexity and reality of an agricultural water resources allocation system. Among different methods, inexact two-stage stochastic programming (ITSP) has proved to be an effective technique for dealing with uncertain coefficients in water resources management problems. ITSP is incapable of reflecting random uncertainties that coexist in the objective function and constraints. Considering the risk of violating uncertain constraints and the stochastic uncertainty of agricultural irrigation water availability on the right hand side of constraints and uncertainties related to economic data such as the revenue and penalty in the objective function which are expressed as probability distributions, the CCP method and Kataoka’s criterion are introduced into the ITSP model, thus forming the uncertainty-based interactive two-stage stochastic programming (UITSP) model for supporting water resources management. A set of decision alternatives with different combinations of risk levels applied to the objective function and constraints can be generated for planning the water resources allocation system. In the next step, on the basis of results of UITSP agricultural irrigation water shortage risk evaluation can be conducted by using risk assessment indicators (reliability, resiliency, vulnerability, risk degree and consistency) and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method.

A series of water allocation results under different flow levels and different combinations of risk levels were obtained and analyzed in detail through optimally allocating limited water resources to different irrigation areas of Marand basin. The results can help decision makers examine potential interactions between risks related to the stochastic objective function and constraints. Furthermore, a number of solutions can be obtained under different water policy scenarios, which are useful for decision makers to formulate an appropriate policy under uncertainty.The results show that the dry season, i.e., July, August and September are the peak periods of water allocation and demand in Marand basin, which in these months, despite the higher water demand, the amount of water allocation in the current situation is less, which leads to more water shortages in these months. However, the results show that by increasing the efficiency of irrigation and water allocation using the developed framework, the amount of agricultural water allocation and demand is almost balanced and in addition to reducing water shortages, it leads to control over extraction from wells. Also, the goals of the regional water organization, which is reducing the amount of water allocated in the agricultural sector, will be achieved. Comparison with actual conditions shows that the allocation of water resources using the developed framework reduces water shortages while allocation becomes more efficient. Furthermore, the net system benefits per unit water increase which will demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of the developed framework. Results of evaluation of agricultural irrigation water shortage risks indicate that the water shortage risks in the Marand basin are in the category of serious or critical risk level. Therefore, if the current trend of allocation and exploitation of water resources continues, with the population growth, climate change, increasing demand for agricultural products and changing the probability of available water in the future, the water shortage risk would increase to the unbearable risk level. The continuation of this process threatens all investments and economic foundations of this study area. Therefore, the risk of water shortage in the future should be managed by improving the water-saving technologies and also changing the cultivation pattern to drought resistant crops.

In this study, an uncertainty-based framework for agricultural water resources allocation and risk evaluation was developed, including model optimization of agricultural water and risk evaluation of water shortage. The developed framework is capable of fully reflecting multiple uncertainties. The developed framework will be helpful for managers in gaining insights into the tradeoffs between system benefits and related risks, permitting an in-depth analysis of risks of agricultural irrigation water shortage under various scenarios. The assessment of agricultural water shortage risk based on the results of the optimization model helps decision makers to obtain in-depth analysis of agricultural irrigation water shortage risk under various scenarios. In application of the developed framework to Marand basin, series of results of agricultural water resources allocation expressed as intervals, and agricultural water shortage risk evaluation levels under different flow levels and also different combinations of risk levels are generated. Comparison between optimal results and actual conditions of agricultural irrigation water allocation demonstrates the feasibility and applicability of the developed framework. Results of evaluation of agricultural irrigation water shortage risks indicate that the water shortage risks in the Marand basin are in the category of serious or critical risk level. Therefore, effective risk management measures should be taken first for different irrigation areas of Marand basin.

East Azerbaijan province is one of the important provinces in crop production, with the production of 7.28% of the country's wheat and 4.76% of barley, which has an important role in providing these two products. But in recent years, because of multiple droughts, rainfall reduction and irregular distribution of that, the unpleasant condition of runoff water in the basin of Urmia lake, groundwater level drawdown and increasing their salinity, and etc., the agricultural production, especially the production of these two products, is facing with the challenge of water shortage, which has made the water consumption management to be of particular importance, especially in agricultural sector. Accordingly, in this study, using one of the water management tools, namely water footprint, the components of the water footprint of wheat and barley have been investigated in 21 counties between 2007-2017. Based on the results, the average water footprint for the irrigated wheat and barley in the second half of the study period were 2928 and 2888 m3/ton, and for the rainfed wheat and barley were 2998 and 2829 m3/ton, respectively. The average water productivity for both wheat and barley crops was 0.34 kg/m3, indicating that the cultivation of both crops has the same pressure on the province's water resources. In the most county of the province, the share of blue water footprint was more than green water footprint and in general, the share of blue, green, gray, and white water footprints for irrigated wheat was 33.5, 20.6, 12.6, and 33.3% and for the irrigated barley was 34, 20.7, 15.5 and 29.8%, respectively. Also, for both rainfed wheat and barley, the share of green and gray water footprints was 88.3 and 11.7%. Finally, Northeast of the province could be suitable for irrigated wheat and barley cultivation in terms of water footprint index and just on the basis of water consumption management. Bostan Abad county could be suitable for irrigated wheat and rainfed products and the center, west and south of the province could be suitable for wheat and barely products, in terms of saving water resources.

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.

Ajichay basin is one of the largest agricultural areas and water consumption in Urmia Lake basin. During the recent years, the impact of climate change on one hand, and human factors on the other hand, have changed Ajichay basin to a center of crisis as it has lost its efficiency in supplying water for Urmia Lake. Having the main branches of Ajichay, Sarab county has a great role in crop production and therefore agricultural water consumption compared to other counties around the basin. Therefore, managing water consumption in Sarab County is suggested to resolve the decreased quality and quantity of water in Ajichay basin. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to investigate the impact of climate and water management scenarios on water resources, cropping pattern, yield, and profits of farmers in Sarab County. To achieve the study aims, the hydro-economic model was used. In the economic section, quadratic risk programming model and in the hydrological section, the WEAP-MABIA model was used. The purpose in quadratic risk programming model is to maximize the expected farmers’ utility to some technical and structural restrictions. Maximum expected utility of farmers which is calculated by subtracting the risk element from the net income for each crop. MABIA uses a two-part crop coefficient. In the dual crop coefficient approach, the effects of crop transpiration and soil evaporation are determined separately. Two coefficients are used: the basal crop coefficient (Kcb) to describe plant transpiration, and the soil water evaporation coefficient (Ke) to describe evaporation from the soil surface. The current study applied HadCM3, as the general circulation model. LARS-WG was used for downscaling climatic generator and producing rainfall, radiation, and minimum and maximum temperature in a station under A2, B1, and A1B emission scenarios. The period 1987-2018 was used as the base and the future considered period was 2018-2050. All required variables such as information about input values, production quantities, and economic information were collected from 210 questionnaires filled by farmers during 2018 which were selected through stratified random sampling. The results showed that the average rainfall decreased in the range of 21-38% under the emission scenarios of A2, B1, and AIB during 2018-2050 period. In the next period of 2018-2050, the average annual temperature will also increase by 2.5 °C compared to the baseline period under A2 scenario. The results of simulations revealed that the crop yields would undergo a decrease after climate change scenarios. The most considerable yield reduction belongs to A2 scenario in which potato will have the highest yield reduction of 17%. The crop yields of barley and wheat shows a slight reduction. Thus, these two products have larger cropping area in the climatic scenarios. The results of climate change indicate a diminishing trend in available water and water supply reliability for agricultural purposes. The available water for irrigation areas had 21.92% decrease after applying climate change scenario. The mean for water supply reliability in the sub-basin decrease from 84.93% to 62.35% if the future years continue to have a decrease in rainfall and increase in temperature. By applying the scenario of agricultural water reduction along with climate change scenario, the profit in each region will decrease compared to the reference scenario. The highest reduction rate belongs to Asbforushan 2 area with 28% compared to the reference scenario.The profit in all the sub-bases had a rise after increasing irrigation efficiency scenario. Thus, applying increasing efficiency scenario, in addition to more useful and efficient use of allocated water, will also increase farmers' profits which offer a better situation than the scenario of reducing the share of agricultural water.Among the studied crops, bean had the highest reduction in cultivation, which stemmed from its high-water requirement. However, potato also had a high water requirement compared to bean but maintained a high cropping area due to higher gross profits. Findings of the current study revealed that wheat and barley had more resistance against the effects of climate change and shifting the patterns of cropping was an adaptive strategy for coping with the effects of climate change.Climate change reduces the labor employment. As Implementing A2 scenario results in a 14.48% decrease in the average of agricultural employment in the area. The agricultural water reduction scenario alone results in 5.9% decrease in labor, whereas the increasing irrigation efficiency scenario has an 8.9% decrease. Applying the agricultural water reduction scenario along with climate change reduces the employment by 17.2% in the region by reducing the area under cultivation of crops that require a lot of labor. The increasing irrigation efficiency along with climate change scenario also results in a 20.9% reduction in labor employment. Overall, the findings of the current study revealed that without changing the management strategies there would be a considerable reduction in crop yield in near future. Optimizing management methods, selection of right time for crop cultivation, optimized harvest, studying the feasibility of cultivating crops with shorter growth period and using cultivars with higher yield are the effective ways to confront the effects of climate change. The analysis of scenarios revealed that policies alone cannot compensate for water problems and there is a need for plenty of scenario for optimum results.

Productivity improvement is an essential approach to increase production without using more resources. Due to the agriculture is fraught with risks and losses, farmers' behavior is influenced by their risk attitudes and adoption of policies to increase productivity requires adequate knowledge of individual’s decision making mechanism. In present study examined the effect of risk attitudes on total factor productivity for 210 farms of Sarab County that were selected with stratified sampling method. Risk aversion coefficient and Total Factor Productivity were calculated respectively within the Quadratic Risk programming and Fare Primont index. The results of the TFP index show that during the period of 1392-97, the potato had the highest TFP and the rained Barley had the lowest TFP among the studied products. Average Relative Risk aversion coefficient and proportional Risk Premium were 2.9 and 1735000 Rials respectively; this indicates that most farmers in the region are more Risk aversion. The results of the study showed that risk aversion had a negative effect on Total Factor Productivity, therefore reducing the severity of risk and loss and improving risk management skills increase total factor productivity.

The purpose of this study is evaluate and compare technical efficiency of water users association by the approach of the stochastic frontier production function in Maragheh county. Accordingly, for scientific and real understanding of the performance of these associations, the efficiency of productive units is considered. In order to perform this study, the required data were collected through a questionnaire from 147 farmers of Maragheh County. To achieve the aim of this research, stochastic frontier production function was used in which farmers was a function of seed variables, nitrogen fertilizer, phosphate fertilizer and water. Results showed which average efficiency of producing in wheat fields of the sample is 78.9%. So on these farms with available inputs, there is an average of 21.1% chance to increasing the production. Based on the results, it is observed that in a stochastic frontier production function, nitrogen fertilizers,hosphate fertilizers, water and wheat seeds Variables have a significant effect on wheat production. Also Variables such as age, education, participation in extension courses, marriage and cultivating have a significant effect on technical efficiency. Between studied cases, Varjoy water users association, with average efficiency about 83.07%, has the highest technical efficiency. Therefore, participation in extension courses, adopting measures on land integration and benefiting from the experiences of successful Water Users Association will be an important step towards increasing the efficiency of the Water Users Association studied.

The importance of milk and dairy products in the nutrition and health of the community has caused the production and consumption of these products always be considered by policy makers and planners in the country. Milk is a corruptible product that is used both as a final product and as a raw material for the production of other dairy products. Therefore, any problems and inadequacies in supply and demand affect the market of milk and dairy products. East Azarbaijan Province is one of the largest provinces producing milk and dairy products in the country, with an annual production of 842,000 tons of raw milk, the country's third rank. In the last years many problems such as fluctuations in the price of milk in the market, its poor distribution, rising prices of inputs (especially feed), and the high cost of production are affecting the milk industry and causing some disruptions in production and consumption of milk in this province. So, considering these conditions, the examination and recognition of the structure of the milk market is certainly inevitable in the design and development of market regulation programs for this valuable product as well as their effective implementation. The necessity of recognizing the structure of the various product markets has led to numerous studies in this field (Paarlberg and Haley 2001; Khodadkashi and Shahikitash 2005; Hatirli et al. 2006; Memarnejhad et al. 2009; Asiabani et al. 2012; Praveena and Samsai 2014; Khodaverdizadeh and mohammadi 2016). The review of these studies suggests that researchers often use the indicators of concentration ratios and Herfindahl-Hirschman to examine the structure of the market. Although different products have been considered in the studies, it seems that with all the importance of milk production and consumption in the East Azerbaijan province, there is no study on the identification of the milk market structure in this province. In the present study, the structure of the milk market and its degree of concentration in the East Azarbaijan province have been investigated to provide a detailed picture of the degree of competition and the oligopoly of this important and strategic product in the market. It is hoped that the results of the study could be effective in designing and developing milk market regulation programs and their effective implementation.

The market structure is in fact one of the characteristics of the market organization, which, by identifying them, can determine the nature of pricing and market competition. One of the important aspects of market structure is market concentration. Using the concept of concentration, the structure of the market as well as the size of competition and monopoly in individual markets or in the economy could be examined. There are different statistical and econometric methods can be used for the measurement of market concentration. The most important of which are the concentration ratios (CRn), the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI), Hanah – Kay (HK), first order Shannon's entropy (E), and logarithmic standard deviations (L). The statistics and information required for calculations and estimates, which mainly include the production of milk in livestock farms of East Azarbaijan province, the number of dairy factories in East Azarbaijan province, and the rate of absorption of raw milk for each of these factories, were provided from the relevant organizations and institutions such as Organization of Agriculture- Jahad- East Azarbaijan Province, Iran dairy industries Company, and Pegah Bazar Gostar Region 1 company (Tabriz Branch), in 2010 and 2014.

Market concentration of milk producers in East Azarbaijan province was measured based on CRn, HHI, HK, E, and L index. Investigating the milk production of livestock farms and the share of factories of milk absorption in 2010 and 2014 showed that the cities of Tabriz, Azarshahr, Meyaneh, Maragheh, and Sarab have the largest share of milk production in the East Azarbaijan province. Also, among the factories of raw milk recipients, the East Azarbaijan Pegah Company, Azarnoosh shargh, and Shifteh Bonab have the largest share of milk absorption. Furthermore, the results showed that the market structure of milk production of livestock farms in 2010 and 2014 was open oligopoly and the market power of the milk production has increased over the time. This indicates that the number of active livestock has dropped in this interval. Furthermore, the results of mentioned index at the level of dairy factories indicated that the structure of the milk market has ranged from the exclusive competition in 2010 to the open oligopoly in 2014. The ceasing and exiting of some dairy factories from the market and the reduction of the number of factories from 55 to 22, can be a reason of this increased concentration in the province's milk market.

So, based on the results, more attention of managers and policy makers to new investments in dairy industry and creation of necessary and sufficient grounds for the discovery and use of modern methods and advanced technologies of production and maintenance as well as the treatment and elimination of problems of closed dairy factories cause to rise production and absorption capacity of milk. However, the competitiveness of these types of activities prevents excessive price rises and improves the quality and diversity of dairy products, and creates new job opportunities and increases production in the province

Groundwater resources are important production factors in agricultural production. The excessive extraction of groundwater resources and the unfair weather conditions have made the important challenges in water resources management. According to this, reconsideration in management of water resources seems necessary. Shabestar plain is one of the most important areas of agriculture in East-Azerbaijan province that confront with excessive extraction of groundwater and water resources crisis. Given that rainfall is the main factor in nutrition of groundwater resources so, in this study was tried to investigate the effect of rainfall indices on volume and consumption of groundwater and cropping patterns using the dynamic programming model in Shabestar plain in ten-year (from 2001 to 2016) horizon. The results showed that there is strong correlation between 48-Monthly Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI48) and Groundwater Resource Index (GRI) and height of aquifer. Seting water pumping height on SPI48 caused the balance of aquifer gets better. In the current state of extraction, the aquifer's negative balance is about 10.44 million cubic meters per year. With the optimal extraction, the aquifer's negative balance of 8.26 million cubic meters in normal conditions decreases. If optimal water extraction is done according to the weather conditions, In the drought and normal conditions, the negative balance would be about 9 and 6 million cubic meters, respectively. In wet year conditions, the aquifer's balance will be positive and about 10 million cubic meters will be added to the aquifer volume. According to the results, in drought conditions crops cultivation of wheat, barley and grape increased and crops cultivation of tomato and alfalfa decreased. Reduce water extraction and consumption by using water saving irrigation technologies and also applying appropriate prices for low-water crops are the basic strategies for restoration of groundwater table in the Shabestar region.

over the previous years, with development and expansion of broiler breeding units and its increasing production, chicken meat has become an essential commodity in the household food basket and has been attributed as one of the most important sources of protein supply for households. Recently, the chicken market pricing as well as exchange rate volatility has become one of the issues in that industry. One of the main sources of this risk in the chicken market is the exchange rate volatility, which affects the imported inputs markets.   The current analysis is based on 21 years of monthly data on exchange rate, chicken price, corn price, soybean meal price and fish powder price over the period 1995-2016 obtained from the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of IRAN and Livestock Support Company of Iran. In present study, the risk of overflow between the exchange market and the chicken market and its major import inflows are examined. Estimation has been carried out using GARCH-type models, based on the multi variation GARCH (MV-GARCH), for both the extreme downside and upside Value-at-Risks (VaR) of exchange rate volatility risk and chicken market and its major inputs markets. It depicts market risk by means of the probability distribution of a random variable and evaluates the risk with a single real number. While the VaR method is used to measure extreme market risk, as the risk interaction and spillover effect among different markets is apparent. Furthermore, according to a new concept of Granger causality in risk, a kernel-based test is proposed to detect extreme risk spillover effect between two mentioned markets. The methodology used is Granger causality in risk provided by Hong (2001) and Hong et al. (2003). It requires that the time-varying VaR to be evaluated for each return, and then it should be determined if the historical information about risk in one market increases one's ability to forecast its occurrence in another market in terms of Granger causality concept.   According to the results of the Dickey-Fuller unit root test, all variables are stationary at first difference, and based on the results of the seasonal unit root test, seasonal behavior pattern in variables has been found. Then volatility clustering was confirmed by testing heterogeneity of conditional variance. Since the results showed cluster fluctuations in the variables, we evaluated the MGARCH and TGARCH models and then we used VaR to estimate the value series at risk for all variables. The result of VaR section showed that the upside risk of chicken and Fish powder is the highest, and soybean meal and exchange rate having the least risk. In the downside risk chicken and fish powder were known as the most risky markets, corn and exchange rate as least risky. But it is fascinating about the exchange rate that it has a higher upside risk than the downside risk. In other words, there is a greater risk for an increase in the exchange rate market. Finally, the relationship between risks of markets was investigated using risk granger causation. The results indicated that there are over and over additional risks for traders in all of these markets and there is a significant risk spillover between the exchange market and the chicken market and its major inputs markets, the severity of upside spillover is higher than the falling price of the exchange rate. There is a significant risk spillover between the chicken market and its major inputs market at the 95% and 99% confidence levels and in all interruptions, there is a spillover of upside and downside risk.   The exchange rate as a key variable, influences many of the government's policies and economic decisions. Any volatility in the exchange rate will have an adverse impact on both micro and macro levels. Given its impact on the imported input market, it is recommended that a coherent program of foreign exchange market management and stabilization to be developed by the central bank and the government. taking into account the high impression of the input market from volatility and exchange rate risk, it is suggested that, as far as the principle of comparative advantage allows, more strategic inputs such as corn and soybeans to be produced. Considering impressionability of Chicken markets from its inputs market in order to provide consumer welfare and prevent the imposition of additional costs, it is recommended a duplicate effort to be made to implement the policies of market regulation of inputs and reduce volatility in these markets.

Exchange rate is one of the important factors which affect the price of imported inputs like dairy & poultry subsector inputs prices. This study develops a system of empirical models that analysis the exchange rate and the LOP effects on dairy & poultry industry inputs prices (maze, soybeans, barley and fish powder). To achieve the aims of study, we used vector autoregressive (VAR) model in seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework over the period 1381:m1–1391m12. Dichey-Fuller unit root test suggested that all of the variables support the presence of unit root but the presence unit roots can be rejected in the first difference model. The results revealed that, in general, real exchange rate only affects the prices of soybeans and fish powder. A 1% depreciation of the domestic money raises the prices of soybean and fish powder by 8% and 23% respectively, at the same month. Also, results imply no exchange rate pass-through and invalidity of the LOP. According to the results, preventing from intensive increase in exchange rate and its volatility are very important steps on stability of dairy & poultry subsector input prices.

Survey Existence Financial Restrictions and Its Effects on Potato Production of Kurdistan Province Using Lewbel's Indirect Production Function E. Pishbahar , S. E. Kohnehpooshi , J. Hosseinzad , S. Abedi Received: 27 Aug 2015 Accepted: 12 Apr 2016 Abstract One of the problems expressed by agricultural producers is budget restrictions and limited financial resources that could be an influential factor on non-use of economically optimal level inputs. Due to the Potato is one of the important products and the Kurdistan province is one of the major province producers of this product, therefore, this study survey the effect of budget restrictions and their impact on potato production in Kurdistan province. In this context, the approach of indirect production function with Lewbel functional form was used as a generalized functional form of two the Translog functional form and Almost Ideal Supply System. For this purpose, the data of price and quantity of the inputs and the output of potatoes was used during 1991-2011. The results showed that the Lagrange multiplier for the product is greater than one that this indicates the existence of budget restrictions in the production of potato.

The financial statements are one of the important results of the accounting information systems that are given in special frameworks to different groups of internal and external users. Officials and financial planners can use the information, which is obtained from financial ratios analysis, to evaluate the company's situation and take appropriate decisions. This information gives an overall picture of the financial condition and performance of different economic sectors. Accordingly, in this study was tried to evaluate financial performance of poultry farms in Tabriz county that have specific position in preparing society and East-Azerbaijan province's protein.
Due to the fact that the poultry farms have sensitive role in preparing society's requirement protein, and also they have a lot of financial problems, they should be evaluated financially to solve their problems. The population of this research is poultry farms units in Tabriz County that are under investigation as census.
In this study, to evaluate the financial performance of these units, seven financial ratios were calculated.
The results showed the current, quick and debt ratios for these units are in good status, while asset turnover, fixed asset turnover, return on assets and return on sales ratios are not in appropriate condition.
Thrift and logical use of inputs, especially nutrient inputs and energy will have a significant impact in reducing the costs of the poultry farms and increasing their profit. Furthermore, stabilizing the price of the main inputs can prepare a suitable base for regular planning and enhance financial efficiency of these units.

Agriculture is mostly a risky activity in less developed countries, and usually there is inefficiency associate with it. So, Simultaneous study of risk and inefficiency could lead into a more favorable outcome. This study was done to identify factors influencing risk and inefficiency of potato farms in Ardabil. The required data collected by questionnaire from 156 Ardebil potato farmers in 1391. To achieve the purpose, Kumbhakar (2002) and Jaenicke (2003) models that are based on Aigner et al (1977) and the Meeusen and Van Den Broeck (1977) frontier model, were estimated. According to the results, water does not affect production risk in the farms. labor and machinery, reduce production risk and seed increase it. Seed and labor increase the efficiency average and machines and water decrease it. Producers Gender does not affect the efficiency average and efficiency variance. Therefore, increased using of labor for risk reducing and efficiency increasing in these units is recommended.

The intensive use of pesticides has posed detrimental effects on the environment. Such challenges show that integrated pest management (IPM) plans should be extended and applied. In this regard, the investigation of effective factors on the number of applied IPM operations by farmers can help to extend IPM. Furthermore, these kinds of studies can be an appropriate guidance for programmers in administration of sustainable agriculture. For this, in present paper, we investigated the effective factors on the number of applied IPM operations in Khuzestan province to reduce pesticides environmental risk. The required data were collected from 180 farmers of Khuzestan province in 2014. According to dependent variable identity, i.e. it is discrete and count data, the multiplicative regression models were used. The dispersion parameters for negative binomial I, II and generalized negative binomial was about zero, while this parameter for generalized Poisson model was -0.45. In addition, the statistics in LR test for negative binomial models and generalized Poisson were zero and 42.02, respectively, that showed our model is under-dispersion. Consequently, the generalized Poisson model was most suitable. With attention to estimated coefficient, farmer’s experience, education, knowledge and confronting with pesticides environmental risk have positive and significant effects on IPM, while pest severity has negative impacts. The incident rate ratios results showed knowledge level with 1.115 and pest severity with 0.875 were most and least effective factors, respectively. Therefore, poster, visit of farms, which show the effect of chemical poisons, and adoption of persuasive policies to use biologic fight and other IPM operations are necessary.

Limitation of production in different societies, caused increased agricultural production with special emphasis on improving productivity production factors, policymakers considered is. The improved efficiency of productive units and their technology gap is a practical approach to improve the productivity of production factors.
Accordingly, the aim of this study is to analyze the technical efficiency and technology gap of poultry units of Sanandaj.
The required statistics and information was prepared from Agriculture Organization of Kurdistan for the time period of 2009-2012. To conduct this research, econometric approach was used to estimate the stochastic frontier production function and meta frontier production function.
Estimating a frontier production function suggests that technical efficiency for various groups is ranging from 89 to 95 percent and average technical efficiency of cross-border basis function is in the range of 44 to 76 % and groups’ technology gap ratios respectively are 0.46, 0.84 and 0.48, which the second group (units with average capacity) has the most technology gap.
Poultry units with average capacity in terms of the technological gap are in the better situation. That's why all necessary measures in order to adjust production units in order to extend the capacity of farms with a necessary average capacity are recommended.