محمود دانشورکاخکی

In recent years, the non-agricultural sector has been recognized as a tool to reduce rural poverty and create employment for the rural labor. In Iran, non-agricultural activities in rural areas due to recent droughts, water resources crisis and the tendency of rural youth to non-agricultural activities has grown so much that according to the census of Population and housing in 2017, 49.7% of rural employees have been employed in the non-agricultural sector. This study investigates the factors affecting on employment of farmers in non-agricultural activities in Sabzevar city. Data were obtained of simple random available sampling method from 208 farmers in this city in the year 2021-2022 and were analyzed using the logit model.The results showed that 112 people of farmers had non-agricultural activities, of which about 19.6% had government activities, 30.4% were private, and the largest number of farmers are freely engaged in non-agricultural activities. The results of the logit model showed that factors, including the level of education and the number of members of the farmer's household, have a positive effect, and the variables of the age of the farmer, the cultivation level, the experience of agricultural activity, the diversity of agricultural activity and the amount of agricultural income have a negative effect on farmers' employment in non-agricultural activity. The government take action by raising the level of technical and skill abilities of villagers by providing technical and professional education services in accordance with the creation of entrepreneurship in rural areas at the level of schools and universities.

Considering being located in arid and semi-arid regions of the world, Iran is influenced by the most severe impacts of drought. Drought is considered a major threat to the livelihood of rural households. During the recent drought, rural households faced significant losses and hardships, underscoring their lack of preparedness for this natural hazard. Consequently, every society must take proactive measures to manage changes, mitigate threats, and respond effectively. A review of the country's drought management programs reveals that policymakers have consistently prioritized increased production, even amid the critical conditions of recent droughts. This focus on boosting production to meet the basic needs of a growing population has taken precedence over enhancing rural households' livelihoods and resilience. However, improving rural households' resilience in drought conditions hinges on prioritizing their capacity for adaptability and flexibility. Therefore, considering the sensitivity of the issue of resilience as a dominant approach effective on the dimensions of life and livelihood of rural households on the one hand and the lack of a comprehensive study on its underlying factors, on the other hand, this research seeks to answer two questions: First, what is the resilience level of rural households against drought? Second, what factors influence the resilience levels of rural households in drought conditions?

The statistical population of this study is 16,817 rural households in Zehak city, located in Sistan and Baluchistan province, which are strongly influenced by different climatic events such as drought, excessive heat, low rainfall and 120-day winds. A stratified random sampling method was used to determine the sample size. According to Cochran's formula, the sample size is estimated to be 376 households. Data were collected by completing multidimensional questionnaires along with semi-structured interviews from households in 2023. To measure the resilience capacity of rural households, the theoretical framework of TANGO based on the estimation of the three capacities of absorption, adaptation and transfer was used through the factor analysis method, in which attitudinal and mental aspects of resilience are also taken into account. Finally, partial proportional odds model has been used to evaluate the influencing factors on the resilience capacity of rural households.

The results of the state of resilience capacity of rural households in the region indicated that the average value of their resilience capacity is 26.27, which shows the low level of resilience capacity in the region. Also, the households of the region are in a bad situation based on the absorption, adaptation and transmission capacities, and the households of the region have a stronger transmission capacity than the absorption and adaptation capacity against drought. The results of grouping the resilience capacity of households reveal that 32.45% are in the vulnerable group, 28.19% are in the relative resilience group, 22.61% are in the resilient group and 16.76% are in the high resilience group. The results show that more than 60% of households are at very low levels of resilience. Finally, the partial proportional odds model results demonstrated that the variables of education of the head of the household, skill level in agricultural activities, savings, household income, number of household contacts with agricultural extension, membership of the head of the household in social groups and access to microcredits have a positive effect and variables of the value of the loss of agricultural products and the number of livestock lost have a negative effect on the resilience capacity of rural households against drought.

According to the findings, policy-makers should prioritize strengthening the variables that determine the resilience capacity and its dimensions in the implementation of drought management programs so that households can absorb drought shocks without damaging their basic components. Policy-makers should also target specific categories of risks, dimensions of vulnerability and resilience in different time periods (before, during, and after shock) in order to choose comprehensive strategies to build and increase resilience. For instance, before a shock, better access to early detection of emerging climate risks could help farmers plan their cropping activities accordingly. Access to climate information allows for forward-looking adaptation that reduces the impact of shocks and increases resilience.

In this study, the technical efficiency and environmental efficiency of irrigated wheat producers in 31 provinces of the country were investigated by considering the emission of CO2 as an undesirable output during the years 1385-1397.

Data envelopment analysis and the Malmquist productivity index were used under natural disposability and managerial disposability. In the Malmquist index, the amount of wheat production was used as the desired output, and the amount of carbon dioxide emission from the production of irrigated wheat was used as the undesirable output. To determine the amount of CO2 emission, the carbon dioxide emission coefficients related to each production input and the amount of their use in the study area were used.

The results of the Malmquist productivity index with the absence of border crossing showed that under the natural disposability, Khorasan-Razavi has the highest index value. Kermanshah province has strong efficiency, and Fars has weak technical efficiency in irrigated wheat cultivation. Also, the results under managerial disposability showed that East Azerbaijan has the highest efficiency. Ardabil, Bushehr, Fars, Kermanshah, and Hormozgan, with ten years of Malmquist productivity index more than one, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, North Khorasan, Kurdistan, and Lorestan had a six-year history of Malmquist productivity index less than one. The results of Malmquist's productivity index with the occurrence of border crossing show that under natural disposability, this index is more than one in all provinces. It is, although, under managerial disposability, less than one in all provinces.

Originality/Value: 

It is recommended that farmers' knowledge and awareness of the side effects of irrigated wheat production on the environment be increased through training courses and classes. Considering the climate change, the provinces that have more environmental efficiency in the production of irrigated wheat should be prioritized for cultivation.

In Bushehr province finishing and becoming salty of groundwaters in some fields like Dayer, Kangan, Jam, Assaluyeh make alarm as an active for water lack in other fields of Bushehr province. This study considers the objectives of achieving the maximum economic gross margin, the minimum underground water draft as well as the reduced greenhouse gas emissions, then, attempts to determine optimal cropping pattern for farmers in Jam County. The data for the study were obtained following the completion of questionnaires 60 farmers in Jam County in the years 2017 and 2018. In this regard, a Fuzzy Multi-Objective Linear Programming Model was applied. The results illustrated that in the homogeneous group of farmers with more than 3 hectares, growing of such crops as wheat, tomato, cucumber, onion was decreased, the production of barely, aubergine was increased, water intake from ground fields 35%, emission of greenhouse gases 25% was decreased. However, government may consider some facilities for other cost making farmer’s activities providing stability, sustainability for coinciding this type of patterns for farming of mentioned region.

 Given the growing global hunger in recent years, creating and increasing resilience among disadvantaged and impoverished communities, emphasized in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, is a significant concern to most countries. The term resilience is generally considered as the capacity of a system to withstand various risks, and household resilience can be defined as the ability to return to the previous level of living conditions after a shock. Since one of the most critical shocks that farmers have faced in Iran is drought, the present study aimed to estimate the effect of drought on rural farmers’ household resilience in a selected village in Qalandar Abad district in Iran.

 The factor analysis method was used to estimate the components of the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Mimic (Multiple indicators_ multiple causes) method was used to estimate the latent variable of resilience. RIMA, which considers resilience as a latent variable, includes four main components of Access to Basic Services (ABS), Assets (AST), Social Safety Nets (SSN), and Adaptive Capacity (AC). Also, according to the purpose of the study on estimating the resilience of rural households with the MIMIC method, at least two food security indicators at the household level, as multiple indicators of resilience, are required. The food security indices used in the calculations of this study include the Household Hunger Scale Index and the household Food Consumption Score. The samples included 149 farmers randomly selected from Hossein Abad Rekhneh Gol village, and data were collected through interviews with the household head. To reveal the effect of different shocks on the rural resilience households, self-reported information such as drought, livestock loss, and the characteristics of the households were used through an Ordinary Last Square regression.  

 In the first stage, each of the pillars of resilience, including Access to Basic Services, Assets, Social Safety Nets, and Adaptive Capacity, which are considered latent variables, shows a higher correlation between the variables, and the calculated pillars indicate the greater importance of that variable in each of the resilience components. According to the results, among the variables that constitute the pillar of access to basic services, "the distance from the household to the health center" variable correlates with this pillar, which indicates its high importance. In addition, the "attending school years" is one of the most important variables in forming and creating the adaptive capacity of a household to the crises ahead. The agricultural water availability and the total yield during a year play an important role in creating the asset pillar. Regarding creating the social safety nets pillar, as we expected, the governmental cash transfers, through monthly subsidies, the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation, and the State Welfare Organization of Iran, is the most crucial variable. The results obtained from the food consumption (FCS) score index showed that 117 out of 149 studied households are within the acceptable threshold, 28 households are on the borderline, and four households are in a poor food consumption situation. The Hunger Scale Index showed that out of 149 households, 62 households are on the little to no hunger threshold, while 81 households are on the moderate hunger and six households are on the severe hunger threshold. Also, based on the results of the MIMIC model, among the calculated pillars, household assets is the most important. The increase of one standard deviation unit in AST will increase 0.06 standard deviation units in the resilience capacity index. Adaptive capacity and social safety nets pillars also play a significant role in creating resilience for rural households. Thus, increasing one standard deviation in the AC and SSN led to an increase in the magnitude of the resilience by 0.04 and 0.03 standard deviations, respectively. Finally, the effect of different shocks on the rural resilience households showed that variables such as drought, livestock loss, and gender of household head (being female) have a negative effect on their resilience. The size of the household has a positive impact, which means that the more family members, the more resilience.

 One of the critical goals of underdeveloped and developing countries, is to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development. In Iran, like other developing countries, smallholder farmers are known to be vulnerable to environmental and economic changes such as climate change, rising prices of agricultural inputs, etc. Therefore, adopting and implementing policies that lead to a fair income distribution for vulnerable people is essential. Estimating the RIMA makes it possible to rank households based on their strengths, weaknesses, and current needs. Budget allocation and the policy time duration are two limiting factors that may optimize using the RIMA results. The present study examined the RIMA and the effect of drought on the calculated index for the first time in Iran for a specific region. Since the ranking of households based on resilience requires awareness of all vulnerable households' situations, the definition of short-term and long-term projects in the future development plans is essential. To identify "the most vulnerable groups" and "the most important challenges and shocks," these scheduled projects are vital for budget allocation prioritization.

The COVID-19 crisis was first regarded as a threat to public health, but it gradually started to threaten different sectors. One of the sectors influenced by this crisis, which is the topic of this research on the effects of COVID-19, is the fisheries sector in the coastal cities of Sistan and Baluchistan province. Diverse hazards jeopardize these cities and most have environmental origins. The present research was an applied study in terms of the goal and aimed to investigate the factors related to the improvement of environmental resilience in the coastal cities of Makran. The statistical population was composed of all residents of the studied areas (Chabahar, Konarak and Dashtiari), Fisheries experts, and environmental activists. The factors underpinning the improvement of environmental resilience were determined with factor analysis, and the environmental resilience of the study site was assessed with a combination of maximum entropy and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Based on the results of factor analysis, the factors were divided into three categories named “pollution control”, “waste management”, and “access to services and conservation of resources”. “Pollution control” was found to be the main factor in accounting for the variables of coastal pollution, so it was recognized as the first factor in improving the environmental resilience of the coastal cities against COVID-19. The next factors were “waste management” and “access to services and conservation of resources” with the weights of 0.347 and 0.141, respectively. Also, the results of the combined maximum entropy and AHP revealed that the coastal areas of Makran were, in total, lowly resilient and that among the coastal cities, Konarak had the highest environmental resilience (0.46).

Agricultural clusters are one of the new agricultural organizations that can have an important impact on rural development. The present article examines the factors affecting rural development, especially the role of agricultural clusters in Gonabad. To achieve this goal, the scalogram index, location index and partial least squares method have been used. The results of the development index show that the villages of the suburbs around the city of Gonabad are developed, the villages of Paskloot and Zibad are relatively developed and the villages of Kakhk are in the undeveloped category. Also, based on the results of spatial coefficient index, three products of pistachio, saffron and barley were selected to form clusters. Then, to determine the factors affecting rural development in the study areas, the partial least squares method was used and the results of this section showed that the formation of these clusters is effective on the rural development process in the region; Therefore, it is suggested that by forming pistachio clusters in Paskloot and saffron in Kakhk rural district, by improving the economic performance index and cluster index to help improve the rural development situation, especially in underdeveloped villages.

Today, in developing countries, including Iran, migration from rural to urban areas is an important social and economic issue. Given the importance of the issue of willingness to stay in village, this study aimed at investigating the relationship between willingness to stay in village and effects of financial access through internal and external financing. The statistical population included the rural households of Gonabad, Torbat-e Heydarieh and Sabzevar counties in Razavi Khroasan province of Iran; and among them, 397 rural households were selected as the sample size. The extent of people's satisfaction with living in rural areas as dependent variable (low, medium and high satisfaction) and age, gender, type of activity, area under cultivation, income, and total value of assets, savings and access to formal and informal credits as independent variables were studied. To analyze the data, due to the existence of heterogeneity in the sample, the multilevel sequential logit method was used. To confirm the existence of heterogeneity in the studied cities and villages, the statistics of intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and design effect (DE) index were considered, resulting in 0.25 and 0.48 values, respectively. Since these values were more than 0.2, the effects of intra-unit autocorrelation were evaluated as considerable and the existence of heterogeneity in the studied cities and villages was accepted; in other words, at the city level, the two main parameters of the number of banks in relation to the urban population and the urban wage rate showed about 0.25 variances between cities, and at the village level, the intra-unit auto-correlation of 0.48 indicated that the main variables of unemployment rate, the presence or absence of water resources and the average income level of the people included about 0.48 variance between villages, which these heterogeneity would provide a wide range of satisfaction to a large extent. Also, other research findings showed that granting facilities to rural households formally (rather than informally) could increase their motivation to stay in the village, and with these formal facilities, they would be able to start their own businesses in rural areas; hence, they might have more satisfaction and desire to stay in the countryside and not migrate to the city.

Today, due to rural migration, agricultural activities in rural areas face problems such as labor shortages, aging of rural people and low productivity. In this regard, this study aimed at examining the effects of access to formal and informal financial credit on migration. To analyze the required data, the multilevel order logit model was used for 397 households from Razavi Khorasan province of Iran. The general results of the research showed that an  increase in access to financial credits above 200 million IR rials would lead to an increased probability of households being in the group of ‘high satisfaction with rural residence’ and a decreased probability of households being in the group of ‘low and medium satisfaction with rural residence’; in addition, households' access to informal loans would increase their probability of being in the group of ‘low and medium satisfaction with rural residence’ and decrease the probability of households being in the group of ‘high satisfaction with rural residence’. Based on the study findings, by expanding and granting the formal financial credits, policy makers can play an effective role in increasing the satisfaction of the rural people and reducing their willingness to rural migration.

Today the incomes of the rural non-farm sector (ie the income from wage and self-employment activities in trade, production and services) are an important source of income for farmers and other rural households, including those without land. This has led policymakers to develop these activities in rural areas. For this purpose, the present study has considered the income structure of rural households in Neyshabur county and its related factors. The data is gathered through a questionnaire survey carried out on 380 rural households from four districts (Zabarkhan, Markazi, Sarvelayat and Mianjolgeh) in the Neyshabour county. The survey is conducted between September 2017 to February 2018. The household was chosen through a multi-stage stratified random sampling. In this study, according to various studies such as Davis et al (2017), rural household income is divided into two groups: farm income (crop, orchard and livestock) and non-farm income (non-farm self-employment, wage employment, pension- profit -rent and cash subsidy) have been divided and multilevel Tobit models have been used to investigate the determinants of rural household income in each of these groups. The results of the questionnaire show that 51.16% of the average income (21.19 million Tomans) of a rural household in Neyshabur in 2016-2017 from farm and 48.83% from the non-farm sector .The results showed that household head characteristics such as age, sex and education did not affect the farm income and the income of this sector was dependent on variables such as farmland size, farmland ownership, number of livestock and number of employees in the sector. In addition, the results revealed that higher education of the household head only affected non-farm wage income and access to credit only on non-farm self-employment income. It is noteworthy that the increase in the number of households employed if they were engaged in non-farm self-employment has generated more annual household income than all five groups of rural households.

Almost all rural communities in Iran are exclusively engaged with agriculture, therefore farming remains the largest source of income for them. Agriculture can be a major driver of growth for the Iranian economy. Therefore, increasing factor productivity in the agricultural sector is essential and by growing population rate, the need to invent more productive systems is highlighted. In this regards, smallholder agriculture, which is marked by low productivity should be transformed into agribusiness corporations which could foster the income and productivity of enterprises. Regarding the effective role of agribusiness corporations in enhancing agricultural productivity, and providing livelihoods and employment in rural communities, this study aimed at investigating the impact of location decision, social and human capital factors on the longevity of an agribusiness corporation called Khezri Agribusiness Corporation located in Khezri Township from Sothern Khorasan province. The reason for choosing Khezri Corporation as the case study was that according to surveys, this corporation has been one of the most successful agricultural associations for many years and has been able to create job opportunities to stop migration towards big cities. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to expendably investigate the factors affecting the continuity of an agribusiness corporation in Iran.

In order to achieve the objectives of the research, a well-structured questionnaire has been designed according to the literature review and using the opinions of university professors and experts of Khezri Agricultural Corporation. In this study, location factors, social capital and human capital are three main structures that are assessed by providing the information extracted from the questionnaire, and then, the impact of each structure on the continuity of the corporation's activity has been investigated based on indexing method. Each of the structures consists of different dimensions, and each dimension is measured by a number of items or questions using a Likert spectrum. Simple random sampling procedure was used to obtain the size of sample. At the end, the sample size was estimated at 45. Applying a systematic random sampling technique, the respondents were selected and the final questionnaire was distributed among them. At the primary analysis, 15 questionnaires were excluded from the analysis due to the large size of missing information. A total of 30 questionnaires were selected for further analysis. It is worth noting that in most cases, the questionnaires were tried to be completed in the form of interviews to increase the accuracy of the work.

Study findings suggest that location, social and human capital factors are at a high level of importance in the studied corporation. From the viewpoint of respondents, social capital had the greatest impact on the longevity of the corporation, followed by location and human capital. Furthermore, the communication dimension in social capital, the infrastructure factors in the location decision and the non-cognitive abilities in the human capital have been identified as the most influential components on the longevity of Khezri Agricultural Company's activities. Among the infrastructural factors, the criterion of "existence of basic resources" such as water wells, aqueducts, qanats, underground aquifers, etc. is the most effective criterion. According to 93.3% of respondents, this factor has a moderate to high impact on the corporation's location.

We recommend effective communication and planning in improvement of communication between organizational units and communication between managers and employees needs to be strengthened. Internalization of the organization's vision, mission, and goals, implementing a goal-based management plan, and applying the suggestion system in the organization and investing in formal and organized training are recommended as well to sustain the agribusiness corporations. It must be noted that given that the findings of this study are largely in line with the research background, its recommendations are expected to be applicable to the other agricultural business corporations in Iran. In addition, as we formerly discussed in the introduction of this paper,despite the benefits of agricultural corporations, few of these companies are currently active in the country. Therefore, analysis of factors affecting farmers’ decision to be involved in establishing agribusiness corporations should be the subject of future research.

Lack of access to adequate energy and the prevalence of undernourishment are of the most important issues in the developing world due to their impacts on public health and individual’s physical and mental abilities in society. Therefore, this study aimed at investigating the impacts of drought, food production diversity and different household characteristics on the prevalence of undernourishment in rural areas of Iran. For this purpose, panel quantile regression was considered as the best technique to estimate the impacts of social and economic indicators on the prevalence of undernourishment during the period of 2012-2016. The main results indicated that among the household characteristics, increase in household income, share of food in household expenditure and age of household head and among the environmental indicators, increase in food production diversity would prevent the prevalence of undernourishment in studied rural households; on the other hand, increase in household size, education expenditure, drought severity, and food price indexes would increase the prevalence of undernourishment. Based on these results, non-agricultural income tax exemptions in the rural areas and redistribution of current subsidies by focusing on highly malnourished areas as well as focusing on large rural households, providing policies that reduce the impacts of drought on food production and ultimately, promoting the strategies that allow for increased diversification of food production at the household level could be suggested to prevent further malnutrition in the rural areas.

Mushrooms have valuable nutrients and physiological traits which has made it a suitable food for households. Among the various mushrooms, the King Oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) is considered as the best species among Oyster mushrooms, due to its superiority in stem and cap strength, thickness and fleshiness of its white stem, long shelf life, good taste and aroma, and numerous nutritional and medicinal properties. In addition, the edible-medicinal mushroom of the King Oyster, due to its very low moisture content and high strength between the stem and the cap, has a very long shelf life compared to other mushrooms and is therefore introduced as a high durability product. The King Oyster can remain fresh for 15 to 18 days after harvesting in suitable storage conditions. Also, this mushroom which is produced without application of any fertilizer or toxins is widely used as a healthy food, and in many countries, including Korea, China and Japan, it is facing widespread consumer demand. Therefore, considering the numerous characteristics of King Oyster and its substitution with Button mushroom, the aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting household preferences for its replacement with Button mushroom. The study population of this research includes households living in Mashhad. As the edible-medicinal King Oyster mushroom is a special mushroom, this product is distributed only in some specific areas due to its unique features. Therefore, the Convenience sampling method was used. Sample size was determined based on the Morgan Table, and the highest volume, 400 samples, was selected to accurately assess consumer behavior. Also, the questionnaire was completed in 2019. Due to the sequential nature of household consumption preferences, the ordered logit model has been carried out to achieve the research objectives. The ordered logit model is a useful tool when the researcher seeks to analyze the behavior of consumers (households) in different groups. In the present study, after creating a consumption experience for households that had not previously consumed the King Oyster, empirical findings showed that a significant percentage of households (47.5%) preferred to substitute the King Oyster for Button mushroom, and only 12.5% ​​of households had low tendency to do that. The Brant test results showed that the values ​​of the status parameters for all the dependent variables were constant and uniform, and in this respect, it is permissible to apply the Ordered Logit model. Our results indicated that variables such as household income, importance index of pre- and post-cooking appearance characteristics, food and medicine awareness index, sales promotion index, product accessibility index, and familiarity with the King Oyster had a positive and statistically significant effect on the probability of consumption. On the contrary, variables such as age of the head of household and price index of the King Oyster had negative and significant effect on the probability of being in groups with higher levels of consumption preferences.  Conclusion and Suggestions: This study aimed to investigate the factors affecting household preferences for its replacement with Button mushroom. For this purpose, ordered logit model was applied in the households’ consumption in Mashhad city. Based on the results, the familiarity with the King Oyster mushroom had positive and significant effect on household consumption preferences, indicating that cognition and awareness of this product will increase household preference for substituting this mushroom for button mushroom. Thus, it is suggested that marketing policies and programs focus on introducing this product. In addition, creating a consumer experience for households initially led to familiarity and ultimately to the preference of the King Oyster rather than the button mushroom. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to create a consumer experience for households that have not yet consumed this product before. This can be done through King Oyster distribution stands as a useful tool in a well-designed program.

Today, non-farm income is an important part of the livelihood strategies of rural households and plays a great role in reducing the poverty and income inequality. So, this study aimed at investigating the effect of non-farm incomes on income inequality in rural Neyshabur County of Iran. For this purpose, the Gini coefficient decomposition index was used. Required data were obtained from 380 rural households in the county using a multi-stage stratified random sampling method from September 2017 to January 2018. The results of the questionnaires showed that the average income of a rural household in Neyshabur in the period of 2016-2017 was about 211.9 IR million rials. The non-farm incomes (such as self-employment, non-farm wages, pension, rent and profits, and subsidies) accounted for 48.8 percent and farm incomes (permanent and temporary crop and livestock) accounted for 51.1 percent of the total rural households’ income. Gini coefficient decomposition results revealed that while non-farm incomes decreased income inequality, the farm income tended to increase the income inequality among the rural households. The largest share of rural households' income inequality was related to livestock income with 34 percent and the lowest related to the subsidies income source with 2 percent. Based on the results, the policy recommendation of this study is to provide a context for the growth of non-farm activities, especially non-farm wage and self-employment activities in rural areas, to reduce the income inequality.

In this study, the impact of different food groups’ consumption, social and economic indicator on the share of food in household expenditure in the rural and urban area of Iran investigated. For this purpose, panel quantile regression considered as the best technique. The results indicated that the impact of social and economic indicators and food groups’ consumption varies in different quantiles. Moreover, between social and economic variables, income, food price index and literacy rate considered as the most effective determinants of food expenditure in rural and urban areas. Furthermore, consumption of cereal and dairy in a rural area and cereal and vegetables in an urban area do not affect the household’s food expenditure; on the other hand, increase in consumption of meat and crop oils in rural and urban area upsurge the share of food in the household expenditure. Based on the results, the implication of policies, which lead to household income improvement and stabilized the food price can improve food availability in both rural and urban areas. Besides, the introduction of the innovative and stable method of dairy and vegetable production in a rural area and encouraging the urban household to consume more vegetables results in more diverse diet and enhance the food security and simultaneously don’t increase the share of food in household expenditure.

Sustainable development is now considered in many developing countries as the main economic approach for reducing poverty and improving living standards and enhancing environmental protection. Therefore, the use of appropriate tools to achieve the goals of sustainable development in rural areas has been very important. In this regard, the microcredits has been proposed as an effective tool in sustainable rural development. So the purpose of this study is to answer the question of what will be the impact of microcredit on the economic, social and environmental sustainability of rural households? In order to answer this question, 309 questionnaires were completed from the households of the villages of Torbat-e-Jameh County and the combination of propensity score matching regression approach and bootstrap algorithm was used. The results showed that the microcredit has a positive effect on economic and social indices, however, its impact on the environmental index is negative. In order to increase the validity of results the confidence interval was estimated. Furthermore, the Rosenbaum sensitivity analysis revealed that the sensitivity of the results of economic and social indices, even with a fourfold increase in gamma, is still significant. Also, the probability of a difference in the treatment group due to unobserved factors (or gamma) should be increased to 3.2 to change the effect of microcredit on the environmental index. Given the importance of microcredit at the rural communities due to the process of economic and social development, and also, its impact on the reducing of negative effects on the living environment, it is recommended that the government should support microfinance institutions and provide a legal and environmentally friendly framework to expand microcredits.

Rural non-farm sector(RNFS) comprises all economic activities –such as manufacturing, transport, commerce, banking, service and so on) in rural areas expect cropping, agriculture, livestock, husbandry, hunting, fishing, and forestry. So, RNFE means employment of rural household members in the nonfarm sector, and RNFI is the income thereby generated. Various studies have shown that nonfarm activities play an important role in reducing rural poverty, increasing incomes and improving rural household’s well-being. The present study tries to investigate the effect of non-farm employment on rural household’s consumption expenditures in Neyshabour county. 

The data is gathered through a questionnaire survey carried out on 380 rural households from four districts (Zabarkhan, Markazi, Sarvelayat and Mianjolgeh) in the Neyshabour county. The survey is conducted between September 2017 to February 2018. The household was chosen through a multi-stage stratified random sampling. The propensity score matching approach is used to examine the impact of participation in non-farm activities on householdconsumption expenditures. The method compares the consumption expenditures of non-farm households with their counterfactual group that did not diversify into such activities, depending only on  farm activities. The propensity score is defined P(Xi) as the conditional probability of receiving a treatment (employment in nonfarm activities) given pre-treatment characteristics: (1)   Where Xi denotes a vector of pre-treatment characteristics of household i such as household head characteristics, agricultural characteristics and household characteristics ; b(xi) is the logistic conditional function and F(b(xi)) represents logistic cumulative distribution frequency. In propensity score matching analysis, the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) is important. It is computed by matching farm and non-farm households that are closest in terms of their propensity scores and calculated as follows. (2) ATET (X) = E(Y1i | Ti = 1) - E (Y0i | Ti = 1) Where, E(Y1i | Ti =1) represents the expected consumption expenditures outcome of households engaged in non-farm activities and E(Y0i | Ti=1) denotes the counterfactual  consumption expenditures of households without these activities. The counterfactual estimates represent what the consumption expenditures outcome of  households engaged in non-farm activities would be if they have not engaged in non-farm activities.

Survey of 380 households showed that 267 households were engaged in non-farm employment and 113 households had only agricultural activity. The results showed that household's characteristics such as the age of household head, household education, farmland size, livestock ownership, amount of credits and agricultural assets (water value and agricultural machinery) and household asset for the households engaged in non-farm activities and they have not engaged this activities were significantly different but after matching propensity scores of two groups, differences were removed. In other words, the mean of independent variables in the two groups wasn't significantly different. Also, results indicated that participation in non-farm employment has a positive effect on household consumption expenditure as a measure of welfare. So that, based on the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET), annual consumption expenditure of the households were engaged in non-farm employment was 1420 thousand Rials more than consumption expenditure of households without these activities. 

The result of examining the impact of participation in non-farm activities on household consumption expenditure showed that participation in these activities has a positive effect on household consumption expenditures. Therefore, in order to, non-farm activities have more sustainable income and less risk than farm income, it is suggested that non-farm activities be expanded by strengthening and expanding existing industrial parks.

Limited financial capability of rural people causes an increased need for capital or credits in rural areas. Microcredits can provide the cash required for the rural people’s production activities. Therefore, this study aimed at evaluating the microcredit effects on rural sustainable development in selected villages of Torbat-e-Jam County of Iran. For this purpose, the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) model was used for analyzing the data collected from 309 rural households through questionnaire. The results obtained from the post estimation test for quality balancing covariate variables showed that the heterogeneous was improved, and average (mean) and median bias decreased to lower than 20 percent. Also, the PSM results indicated a positive effect of the microcredits on the sustainable development indicator; in another words, the sustainable development indicators related to the households accessed to the credits increased four percent, compared with the households accessed no credits. According to the study findings, it might be suggested to expand the institutions of the cooperative and extension services, to support local microfinance institutions, to create and expand participatory structures, and to increase the capacity of microfinance institutions to respond to increasing finance demand

This study has considered the factors regarding the willingness to pay weather-based index insurance of apple gardeners of Damavand county in the proposed plan. For this purpose, Logit and Tobit models were used. Required information were collected through interviews and completing questionnaires of 307 gardeners of Damavand region by stratified random sampling with suitable assigning. Results of Logit model showed that factors such as education level, garden area, using current insurance, garden construction region, familiarity with weather-based index insurance and the type of gardener activity have a positive and significant effect, and gardeners' satisfaction of the current insurance has a negative effect on the acceptance probability of the proposed plan of weather-based index insurance. The average willingness to pay apple gardeners' premium in Damavand county has been calculated as 7900 thousand Rials per hectare. Also, the results of Tobit model indicated that the level of education, garden area, using the current insurance, the location of garden construction, the level of familiarity with weather-based index insurance, and the type of gardener activity have a positive effect on the level of willingness to pay insurance premium of apple gardeners. Since such factors as the gardener's education level and his knowledge about the weather-based index insurance has a positive and significant impact on acceptability probability of the weather-based index insurance and willingness to pay premium, Thus, to introduce the weather-based index insurance and offer the advantages and shortcomings of current insurance system and weather-based index insurance, it is suggested that agricultural insurance fund provides full information for gardeners to improve their consciousness level and provide a public knowledge before this proposed plan is implemented.

Over the last two decades, awareness of resilience and sustainability and also efforts to reduce unsustainable production patterns have significantly increased. Hence, it is crucial to examine the resilience and sustainability of production systems. Resilience explains how well production systems withstand and/or rebound from aberration. Sustainability concept based on Commission’s words is: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The important issue relevant to resilience and sustainability and the resilience of farms/agricultural systems is, whether resilience or sustainability can be considered as a property of a system or needs to be understood as a process. Since both of them are not essentially opposed but have various theoretical and methodological implications, it is necessary to define a resilience and sustainability indicator. So, it is required to have an intelligent objective function for fairly balancing between production systems and dimensions of sustainable production to fulfill economic benefit and the resulting environmental benefit, etc. Based on the existing published literature, studies focusing on both resilience and sustainability indicators in industrial dairy farms by using multi-objective non-linear programming and swarm intelligence algorithm have not been carried out. Therefore, it is the aim of the present study to design the “automata resilience and sustainability indicator” for industrial dairy farms. The objective function has a hierarchical structure and in order to integrate these pillars into a single score, a value between zero and one, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been used that the value of one means complete sustainability.
Material and The objective function should be maximized which has 5 main indicators including, environmental, economic, social, technological and political issues. Each indicator has some sub-indicators. So, we designed and modeled formulas for all of them. The value of objective function is normalized, therefore, its maximum possible value is "one", which indicates the complete resilience and sustainability of dairy farms. The resilience and sustainability indicator is obtained at three levels. Eight types of constraint sets are considered. Then, the model has been implemented using data of 30[1] industrial dairy farms in Khorasan-Razavi province of Iran during 2016.   The resilience and sustainability indicator across all farms was obtained 0.43 and which was low. One of the main reasons of unsustainability and inflexibility of dairy farms under study is the unsuitable use of resources and inputs. Therefore, the proposed model (Automata Resilience and Sustainability Indicator Model) was designed and optimized. Based on result the optimum resilience and sustainability achievable for the proposed dairy farm is 0.9598 (95.98%). Thus, the proposed model succeeds in determining the dairy farms' resilience and sustainability. Furthermore, it helps in setting up other operational parameters as determining the amount of cow manure produced, the man-working hours and labor expenditure.  The obtained results should be further used as guidance for improving the resilience and sustainability of the manufacturing operation in dairy farms.   This study has introduced a formulation for a resilience and sustainability problem in process of production in the industrial dairy farm. The contribution of the proposed formulation is its ability to addresses all pillars of resilience and sustainability at the producing level. One of the main advantages of the proposed measure of resilience and sustainability is data collection that relies on data usually collected in all farms for revenue and cost analysis, cattle diet and quality control. This fact makes the model applicable to facilities introducing resilience and sustainability concepts. Thus contributes to promoting the implementation of sustainable practices in agricultural production, especially in developing countries, where still have a lack of resilience and sustainability awareness and related legislation. Using weight is important to the application of the objective function and also makes the model suitable for its intended usage in the dairy farms of developing countries. This model is applicable in the area of the optimum dairy cattle nutrition, rising profitability, reducing feed cost, decreasing GHG, managing the water and energy consumption, etc., by maximizing resilience and sustainability in dairy farms. Additionally, the results allow also for identifying the prospective measures for improving resilience and sustainability. Through results analysis, a strategy for developing resilience and sustainability can be well defined. Furthermore, the current research can be extended by integrating the model with life cycle assessment results, another producer support policies, dairy farms' capacity expansions and could also be applicable to other forms of agricultural systems by a bit changes in the decision variables and model parameters.4- This data was gathered based on non-random sampling. Because, in non-random sampling, the sample individuals are selected among individuals who have a defined characteristics and based on researcher's opinion. The proposed model is designed for a sample dairy unit. In other words, the data obtained from non-random sampling were used only to determine the status of the studied samples.

Climate change is one of important issue in agricultural sector in Iran. Because this issue with affects crops’ yield that leads to increasing productivity risk. On the other hand inputs has effect on crops’ yield. So, the aim of this paper is investigating the effect of controlled inputs in production and climate factors on average and performance fluctuations in selected agricultural production in Khorasan Razavi province (wheat, barley) as strategic agricultural products over the period of 2011-2015 by using the Just & Pope model. The results show that in the function of the mean yield, a millimeter increase in the logarithm of precipitation leads to increase in the average yield of rain-fed wheat, rain-fed barely and blue barley at levels of 0.11, 0.04 and 0.24 kg per hectare, and a reduction of 0.57 kg per hectare for blue wheat. An increase of 1 degree Celsius in the logarithm the mean of maximum temperature leads to decrease by 0.02, and 0.1 kg per hectare in the mean yield of blue wheat and blue barely respectively, but the average yield of rain-fed wheat and barley increase by 1.28 and 0.17 kg per hectare respectively. Also, logarithm of the cropping area, mechanization coefficient, nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide had a positive effect on the mean yield. According to the results of the yield risk function, transmittance in precipitation leads to increase the yield risk in blue wheat, rain-fed wheat and rain-fed barely to 0.27, 3.65 and 2.83 kg per hectare and increase in logarithm the mean of maximum temperature leads to decrease 0.69, 5.30 and 6.13 kg per hectare in the yield risk of those products. Based on the results obtained in the function of mean and performance risk, risk management tools include Weather-Based insurance for agricultural products and the use of drought-resistant seed varieties, in order to prevent the risk of production and reduce the vulnerability of farmers to inputs and climatic factors is suggested.

Considering the current challenges of agricultural insurance such as high implementation costs, problems caused by asymmetric information, and agricultural insurance’s being loss-incurring, presenting a proper insurance model is one of the most crucial issues in the field of agricultural products risk management. Thus, given the world successful experience, this study has designed the weather-based index insurance for apple in Damavand County, as one of the biggest apple production center within country. Data were collected during 1987-2016 from Iranian Agricultural Organization and the Meteorological Station in Damavand County. With the frequent application of Archimedean and elliptical copula functions in modeling the multivariate risk, dependency structure between weather variables and apple yield was determined through these functions, and Bayesian approach was employed to estimate the copula parameter. The investigation of different types of copulas indicated that Joe copula was able to model the joint distribution way better than other copulas. Hence there is a strong positive asymmetric dependency structure between variables. The expected loss caused by inappropriate weather condition has been 64281.25 ton for the Entire County. Therefore, the premium amount for each hectare at 100 percent coverage level had been computed as 36348910 Rials. The results of indemnity function demonstrated that frost is the most important loss factor for the apple product in Damavand County. Given the successful results of this insurance system in the world, it is recommended that officials and policy-makers investigate the weather based index insurance plans in different countries and identify its different dimensions to implement this insurance system in the country

Milk and its Products Supply chain is one of the most important chains of agricultural products. In this study, it has been tried to, first, analyze the consumption behavior of urban households in Kerman using time series data for the years 1995- 2015 and Almost Ideal Demand System and then, to investigate one of the most important phenomena in supply chains called Bullwhip effect using moving average method. One of the main causes of this effect is the lack of accurate and in-time information of the demand in different levels of supply chain as well as long lead times. The results show the existence of Bullwhip effect in supply chain of pegah products in Kerman city, accordingly, if actors of supply Chain of dairy products correctly predict products demand in contrast to price changes with regard to various elastics of products, this will lead to more targeted programs and the efficiency of supply chain as well

Climatic changes have severe effects on water and soil sources in any given region. To study the resulting fluctuations of climatic factors in different regions for possible adaptation policies to new climate events is of great importance. A possible approach to study the damage on economic activities caused by climatic fluctuations is to calculate vulnerability index. To achieve this goal, Vulnerability Index (VI) in the period of 1994- 2014 has been calculated for 11 regions of Khorasan Razavi province. The components of climatic fluctuations vulnerability index included two types of shocks (permanent shocks and recurrent shocks). The shocks included temperature fluctuations, precipitation, floods and increasing aridity. The results of the index suggest that in Khorasan Razavi province in the period of study, Torbat heydarieh had the highest and Chenaran had the lowest economic damage from climate change. The average index of vulnerability to fluctuations in the climate Khorasan Razavi province is 47.04 (above- average vulnerability of the developing countries). It is suggested that different agencies for planning and allocating funds for negative impacts of changing climatic factors may find these indices results quite useful and beneficial for further studies.

Today's always Production of affordable is the concern of farmers and officials. Accordingly, it appears should be in addition to cultural and politic objectives, policy makers considered, farmer's needs and goals together. In this study, was determined crop optimal Pattern the main crops of cultivated in Khorasan Razavi Province Based on Comparative Advantage using the fuzzy multi-objective linear programming method. Next target is intended In addition Crops have comparative advantage, Objective such as maximum profit for the farmer.In this study, the data needed to determine the comparative advantage was prepared from Department of Commerce and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) website, also data needed to cropping pattern was prepared from 420 questionnaire that completed in Agriculture Organization of Khorasan Razavi in 2012.The results showed that crops irrigated lentils, kidney beans and corn Irrigated due to lack of comparative advantage were Remove from cropping patterns and crop rainfed and irrigated wheat, irrigated barley, Pnbhaby, dry barley, chickpea, rice, peas Irrigated, lentils rainfed and irrigated sunflower due to the low level of comparative advantage with minimal cultivation patterns And crops of sugar beet, tomato, water melon, Irrigated, Irrigated potatoes, Irrigated canola , Irrigated cucumber, Irrigated Onion and rainfed Watermelon has been the increase in the cultivated area compared to the existing model. Thus, the results suggest that in optimal allocation of scarce resources, especially water in crop production, in addition to considering traditional goals in cropping patterns, should considered goal of comparative advantage.