مجله اقتصاد و توسعه کشاورزی
سال سی و ششم شماره 4 (پیاپی 57، زمستان 1401)

A suitable marketing strategy is essential for increasing sales and profitability at different stages of the product life cycle. The main objective of this study was to assess the factors that affect the choice of marketing strategy at various stages of the product life cycle in the food industry in Mashhad, Iran. Data were collected in 2017 through a survey which 88 marketing managers in the food production industry completed the questionnaires. To reach the goal of the study, the multinomial logit model was applied to determine the effects of explanatory variables on the probability of choosing a special marketing strategy at the various stages of the product life cycle. Results showed that the manager’s experience, education, type of product, competitiveness, reputable brand, and market share had a significant effect on the chosen strategy at different stages of the product life cycle. Therefore, a company’s profitability in a market could be improved by the implementation of a marketing strategy based on product type and in relation to the specific stage of the product life cycle.

In addition to imposing a negative impact on public health, Covid-19 has made the world face a huge financial-economic crisis. The worldwide spread of the coronavirus has also affected the volume of transactions and the value of stocks. Since the food market is more affected under crisis conditions, this relationship has been investigated in the stock exchange in the present study. In order to investigate the effect of Covid-19 patients on the stock index value of food industry companies as well as the relationship between risk and stock index value, the official daily data of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the Financial Information Processing Center of Iran were collected from March 3, 2021 when the first report was announced, to June 2, 2021. Mean Conditional heteroscedasticityvariance regression models were used in the current study. The statistical model specification tests showed that, first, the assumption of heteroscedasticitywas rejected and the needto useheteroscedasticitymodels was proved. Secondly, the asymmetry assumption was accepted. Model estimation results showed a relationship between the numbers of Covid-19 patients with the stock value of the food industry that was an increase in the number of infected people causes a decrease in the stock value of the food industry. Therefore, like other economic sectors, the capital market was affected by the Covid-19 crisis, and increasing exchange rate as a competing market had a negative effect on the stock price index. Also, considering the relationship between risk and stock value of food industries, as expected, there was an inverse and significant relationship between risk and stock value of food industry companies. In other words, an increase in risk leads to a decrease in the stock price of food industries.

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.

The lack of a comprehensive information system and application model in the supply chain of agricultural products in Iran has caused this part of the country's economy to be ineffective despite its potential.Therefore, the aim of the current research was to investigate the Barriers against the orchards production chains  in Meshginshahr located at Ardabil province, Iran. To reach the aim of the study,  the semi-structured interviews were used to collect research data from 16 interviews including farmers, faculties and managers in the field of farming production chains. Then we analyzed the data by applying the Strauss and Corbin method and the paradigm model through Max QDA software. Sampling was theoretical sampling and was done using targeted and snowball methods. Based on that, 16 interviews were conducted with gardeners, university professors and managers in the field of Barriers to the development of agricultural production chains. The open codes included 38 concepts and the core codes also included 44 major categories, which were finally identified into four groups of selective categories including Barriers to i) product production; ii) input supply; iii) product distribution; and iv) customers . Based on the findings of the research on the risk of supply of input resources, the weakness of regulations and rules in supply of inputs, production information barriers, strategic production barriers, competition barriers in production, environmental risks, planning-management, financial-credit, technical-technical barriers, Product distribution cost barriers, lack of regulations in the distribution system, and sales barriers; Barriers related to the production sector are of the Barriers to the development of production chains of agricultural products. Barriers related to the production sector are one of the Barriers to the development of production chains of agricultural products.

Livestock and poultry production and supply is one of the significant food sectors in which more production can lead to a decrease in dependence on exports and earning foreign exchange. Poultry farming is a vital industry for sustainable food supply in all countries. In this research, intelligent applications and solutions in the poultry industry are identified and prioritized using the simultaneous evaluation of criteria and alternatives (SECA) methodbased on criteria representing the sustainable development. Analysis showed that eighteenprincipalfieldsof intelligent solutions are identified in the poultry industry. The weights obtained for sustainable development criteria based on the SECA method are economic (0.351), social (0.3383), and environmental (0.3065) in order of value. Economic sustainability should be most importantinimplementing smart solutions-based projects in the poultry industry. One of the main challenges of the agricultural sector, especially the poultry industry, is traditional production utilization which leads to the overuse of land capacity. Also, the globalization trends, climate changes, moving from a fossil fuel-based economy to an environment-based economy, competition for land, freshwater, and labor shortage have led to more complications in supplyingnutrition. Considering the potential of smart solutions in realizing sustainable development objectives, it is suggested to focus more on the environmental aspects of poultry industry projects.

Iran attempts to expand the non-oil exportsfor diminishing the dependency on oil export income. This research tries to examine the export and trade balance of Iran's agricultural sector. Accordingly, the gravity model was used for export, applying panel data from 1997 to 2017. Also, the trade balance of Iran's total agricultural and the related sectors’commodities was examined. It should be noted that for the trade balance, time series data from 1978 to 2018 were used. The results of the gravity model show a negative effect for the variable of distance. The coefficients of Iran’s per capita GDP and also the GDP of trading partners are positive, as expected. It was found that a one percent increase in the per capita GDP of Iran causes a rise of 3.42 percent in the export of agricultural products; however,that of importing countries haslow statistical significance. Based on the coefficient obtained for the population, an increase in the population of the importing countries raises the demand for Iran's agricultural products.The degree of trade openness revealed a positive and significant effect on the export of agricultural products. The coefficient for the real exchange rate was found to be around 0.9 percent. It was also found that the volatility of the exchange rate is related directly to the export of agricultural products. Comprehensive sanctions have a negative and significant effect, while less restricting sanctions have an insignificant effect on the export of agricultural products. The global economic crisis has also had a dampening effect on exports. For trade balance, the results show that the value added of the agriculture has a positive effect on the trade balance of entire agriculture and sectors. The real exchange rate has a negative effect on the trade balance of agricultural commodities as a whole and livestock and agronomy sectors, confirming the J-Curve theory while it was not supported for the horticultural sector. Also, the variable of exchange rate volatility was included in the model using two measures of positive and negative series of exchange rate changes and the Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (ARCH) effect, but their effect on the trade balance was not the same in terms of both the direction and statistical significance. The trade openness for the agricultural and horticultural sector was found with a positive coefficient, indicating that their production is based on comparative advantage. However, for the sectors of agronomy and livestock, it illustrated a negative effect. Sanctions have also harmed the trade balance.

Khorasan Razavi Province suffers from the most critical groundwater resources in Iran, i.e. the groundwater decline has reached 1 m; 34 out of 37 water plains are banned in Khorasan Razavi Province. Recently, Mashhad plain has been fighting with the crisis of drought and water scarcity. Illegal harvesting from groundwater resources and the warming trend caused by change in climate have exacerbated the crisis. Comprehensive water resources management, assuming the complicated nature of water-related issues, rapid growth of population, water requirement for a variety of purposes, and limited water resources, requires novel methods to stack up technical, economic, environmental, social, and logical perspectives in an integrated forum. One of the tools for comprehensive water resources management is utilizing hydro-economic models to simulate the present status of drainage basins and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios and policies. The current study used a hydro-economic model to simulate the hydrological status of Mashhad plain and evaluate the impacts of different scenarios. Then, the agent-based model (ABM) was used in order to reach an agreement with stakeholders on executing different conservation scenarios. The hydro-economic model results revealed that reducing the water demand of the agricultural sector and, as a result, surface and groundwater consumption is possible through following adaptation scenarios. Implementing various adaptation scenarios may alter the present cultivation pattern. Moreover, the ABM results showed a significant difference between the volume of available water, due to the execution of strategies, and water demand, bringing about the lack of farmers’ cooperation regarding the implementation of conservation scenarios. However, through applying some incentive policies, a number of representative farmers may agree to pursue adaptation scenarios.