جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « هزینه ها » در نشریات گروه « مکانیزاسیون کشاورزی »

Reducing material waste in agricultural production is one of the most important strategies to increase efficiency in the agricultural sector. Accordingly, various methods have been used to measure the economic efficiency and energy of agricultural production. However, most of these methods do not take into account the hidden costs of measuring the efficiency of the production system. Material Flow Cost accounting (MFCA) enables farmers to be aware of the amount of energy and value-added losses that results from material waste. In this study, a new approach (ISO 14,051) was used to measure the economic and energy indicators of canola production in Ardabil province. Data were obtained through face-to-face interviews with 65 farmers in the 2,018. According to the obtained results, the highest amount of input energy is related to fossil fuels and nitrogen fertilizer. Based on energy and economic indicators calculated by two methods of conventional accounting and accounting based on material flow cost accounting, it was found that the total value of canola production according to conventional accounting is equal to 59,055,260 Rials per hectare and in material flow costing is 65,694,700 Rials per hectare. However, in case of reducing material and energy waste (negative production), the benefit-cost ratio in the production process will increase by 0.12 units. Energy efficiency and specific energy were the same in the two accounting approaches because of the non-interference of output energies in their calculation. But net energy in conventional accounting differs by 9,162 megajoules from MFCA. The findings of the present study will help to better understand the issues and challenges related to reducing waste and environmental emissions and optimizing production systems as well as investing in crop production.

In this research, different strategies were developed to establish an agricultural service center in terms of the number and capacity of services provided. A separate location model was developed to locate agricultural service centers for each solution. For this purpose, the location-allocation model was used to develop the location models and the branch and bound algorithm to solve the models. The main purpose of these models was to minimize the cost of deploying agricultural service centers (including start-up and shipping costs to the point of service). In the model solved in this study, measures such as cost of establishment, cost of service start-up, distance between service center to customers, transportation costs and number of trips required to meet each customer's demand were considered. In this study, in order to show the practical capabilities of developed methods and models, a case study was conducted in Razan city, in Hamadan Province. After implementation of the location-allocation model, the optimal locations to establish agricultural service centers in all  villages of the area were determined separately. The results of this study can be used by national and regional managers and planners in locating agricultural service and planning centers to provide services to agricultural users.

In mechanized harvesting, it is very important to develop an appropriate rice reaper for decreasing costs and crop losses. In this study, the field performance of two rice reapers (self-propelled and knapsack power reapers) were compared with manual harvesting. The experiment was conducted in split-plot design with the rice varieties as the main factor in two levels (Hashemi and Khazar) and the harvesting method as sub-factor in three levels (three harvesting methods) based on randomized complete block design in three replications. The results revealed that the effective field capacity of a self-propelled reaper (0.237 ha.h-1) and knapsack power reaper (0.048 ha.h-1) was significantly higher than that of the manual harvesting (0.0083 ha.h-1). The time required for harvesting one hectare using the self-propelled reaper, knapsack power reaper and manual method were 4.22, 20.74 and 119.71 h, respectively. The labor requirements in harvesting for manual method were 159.7 man-h.ha-1 and those of the self-propelled and knapsack power reapers were determined 52.22 and 68.74 man-h.ha-1, respectively. The harvesting losses when self-propelled reaper and knapsack power reaper are used and manual method is practiced,  registered as 2.42% and 2.58 and 2.18 %, respectively. The net saving cost using self-propelled and knapsack power reapers were 7940728 and 4444297 Rial.ha-1 as compared to that of manual harvesting. The break-even point for knapsack power and self-propelled reapers were determined 2.00 and 11.42 ha.year-1, respectively.

This study was conducted at Darab Agricultural Research Station in wheat-cotton rotation for four years. A complete block experimental design with three treatments (no-till, reduced tillage, and conventional tillage methods) and four replications were used. Tillage methods were compared economically. The most beneficial treatment was selected based on estimating the costs and incomes of different treatments and using the net present value method of gross margin changes. Analytical hierarchy analysis (AHP) method was also used to select the most appropriate tillage method. Results showed that there was no significant difference between tillage methods for wheat and cotton yield during most of the years that this investigation was in processing. Reduced tillage and no-till methods decreased wheat and cotton production costs, compared to conventional tillage, for 5 and 10% respectively. These conservation tillage methods, compared to the conventional tillage, also reduced fuel consumption for 60 and 77%, respectively. Conservation tillage methods increased effective field capacity of seed bed preparation and planting operations, so that time required for seed bed preparation and planting operations decreased in reduced tillage and no-till, compared to the conventional tillage, for 62 and 74%, respectively. Conventional tillage had maximum present value of gross margin (53662 thousands Rials) compared to reduced tillage (46379 thousands Rials) and no-till (38149 thousands Rials). Considering different factors in decision making, parameters such as crop yield (0.312), production costs (0.221), and water consumption (0.219) had the highest weight in farmers’ decision for selecting tillage method, and the conservation tillage methods received the highest priority for selection.

Soil aeration by imported machines were reportedly unsatisfactory due to creation of shallow holes, taking off some patches of the turf and time consuming work needed for collecting the excavated cores. Considering these problems, a machine was developed to suit Iran’s lawn spaces. To develop an appropriate aerator, the shape of the plugs was studied at the first step and for this purpose six types of plugs with conical and cylindrical cross section (with and without slot) with tips cut diagonally and perpendicularly were built. The plugs were compared in an experiment based on complete randomized blocks design with 3 replication in an urban lawn space with clay soil in terms of the required static force for cutting the thatch and penetrating to the soil as well as the length of projected cores. The results showed that the conical plugs with beveled tips had a 28 millimeter longer cores than the cylindrical plugs with similar tip using approximately equal forces for insertion. Having chosen the appropriate shape of plug, a split roller with a relatively large diameter were constructed for installing plugs around it and the whole device attached to a walking tractor. Comparing the developed machine with a commercial self-propelled aerator revealed that the developed aerator improved the length of the cores and depth of the holes. The split roller in the machine which windrowed the cores also caused a 65% decrease in labor requirement for collecting the cores and did not have dug patches of turf.

Rice is a main food for Iranian people and has an important role in providing food security. Regarding the population growth، increase of rice production and reduction of losses have special importance in prevention of rice import. Rice losses in the harvest stage are the highest through the whole production period of this crop and hence the reduction of these losses is necessary. Provision of this purpose depends on on-time harvesting and separation of grains from chaff with the least grain losses، and choosing a suitable harvesting method. The choice of harvesting method depends on various factors in each region; thus، different harvest methods in each region must be compared while conducted in the same conditions. In order to recommend the beast harvest method in Shivan-Chardavol region، three harvesting methods (manually، rice-specific combine harvester and conventional cereals combine harvester) were considered as three experimental treatments and four different parts of this region considered as experimental blocks. The experimental design was randomized complete block design. This study was carried out on Anbarboo variety and the measured factors were: effective farm capacity، percent of total losses، percent of harvesting losses، number of workers and harvesting cost. The results of this study indicated that the total difference of factors was significant at the 1% error level among all treatments. The effective farm capacity in harvesting by cereals combine harvester was more than other treatments. The lowest percent of loss was observed for harvesting by rice-specific combine harvester (2. 32%) and the highest percent of loss was obtained for cereals combine harvester (3. 816%). The manual harvesting method had the highest harvesting cost and the lowest cost was found to be associated with the rice specific combine harvester. Therefore، from the results of this study، the use of this combine harvester is recommended for rice harvesting in this region.