Farmers’ Trust in Extension Staff and Productivity: An Economic Experiment in Rural Areas of Iran

Publication history: Accepted - 25 June 2022; Published - 4th May 2023.Farmers’ trust in extension staff may improve the performance of agricultural extension services and productivity through transferred knowledge and new farming practices. Using the trust game and trust questionnaire, this study measured farmers’ trust in extension staff. Measures obtained from the two methods were statistically different. We examined the relationship between the measured trust and agricultural productivity to control socio-economic factors. The findings revealed an insignificant relationship between trust and productivity that might be due to inappropriate attributes of extension programs. This emphasizes the need for more participation of farmers in researching and structuring training programs. While age had a negative impact on trust, traditional farmers with high experience showed a high level of trust. This indicates that young farmers who mostly inherited their lands from their parents and have occupations other than farming or practice modern farming, do not trust the extension staff. Farm size positively influences productivity by reducing the number of laborers per hectare. This emphasizes that the traditional way of farming is the cause of low productivity in Iranian agriculture

Price elasticity of residential water demand: a Meta analysis of studies on water demand, (case study: Iran)

Contrary to the traditional supply policies, the integrated water resources management concentrates mainly on demand policies in which water tariffs are the most effective tools in achieving economic efficiency through management of water consumption. It is therefore important for policy makers and water managers to understand price elasticity for water demand presenting how changes in water tariffs affect water consumption. In this study, we reviewed 21 empirical case studies in Iran, including journal articles, master thesis and PhD dissertations, from which 65 estimates of price elasticity for residual water demand were collected. Using t-tests, the collected estimates of price elasticity found to be statistically different. Applying the meta-analysis approach that is focused on the two main objectives of publication bias and publication heterogeneity, it is attempted to explain the heterogeneity in the reported studies. Publication bias was tested using different techniques of meta-analysis. Using meta regression, impacts of theoretical specification, model specification, data characteristics and population the heterogeneity across the reported elasticity estimates are examined. Inclusion of income, use of time-series datasets, natural logarithm function of demand and application of stone greay theory are all found to affect the estimate of the price elasticity. The population density and use of OLS technique to estimate the demand parameters do not significantly influence the estimate of the price elasticity

Investigation on Technical Efficiency of Agronomy and Horticulture Sub Sectors Products in Khorasan Razavi Province: Application of Integrated Neural Network and Fuzzy Clustering Approach

A survey of the natural resources situation in the Khorasan Razavi province reveals that this sector is faced with problems such as negative balance of water in the plains, soil salinity, and soil erosion. This study tries to estimate the technical efficiency of the states of the Khorasan Razavi province in agronomy and horticulture subsectors with attention to restriction of water resources. Required data is collected from yearbooks of Jihad Keshavarzi and Regional Water Organization of Khorasan Razavi province for years 1997, 2002 to 2004 and 2006. This study uses an integrated neural network and fuzzy clustering algorithm. Mean of technical efficiency in the case of considering water resource limitation is 77 percent while as in the case of not considering water recourse limitation is about 74 percent. Results indicate that considering water recourse limitation in agricultural production in each region can affect results of technical efficiency assessment for each state

The effects of business cycle indicators on stock market indices of food industry in Iran

This paper investigates the effects of the business cycle indicators on stock market indices of food industry companies in Iran stock market. Using dynamic panel and Panel VAR methods for seasonal data of 2001-2015, the results show that the effect of GDP and agricultural value-added as indicators of business cycle on stock market indices of sales volume, price index, net profit and stock return are positive. The results of panel VAR models also show that the shocks entered by GDP and agricultural value ?added have a different effect on stock market indices of sales volume, price index, net profit and ?stock return. Due to the positive effects of the business cycles indicators on the stock market indices of food industry companies, it is recommended that policy-makers consider strategies to increase GDP and agriculture value-added. Acknowledgement : I am attaching herewith a manuscript entitled ?The Impacts of Business Cycle Indicators on Stock Market Indices of Food Industry for the 30th international conference of agricultural economics. With the submission of this manuscript, I would like to undertake that the above-mentioned manuscript has not been published elsewhere, accepted for publication elsewhere or under editorial review for publication elsewhere. Please don't hesitate to contact me for further information. Thanks in advance for your time and consideration. Sincerely Hosein Mohammadi, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Ira