درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Agriculture plays a pivotal role in Africa's development and is essential for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the agricultural sector is inherently exposed to production risks, and many farmers in the developing world lack access to reliable agricultural insurance coverage. This situation arises due to limited data and knowledge about farmers' insurance needs and the high costs associated with insuring against severe agricultural risks. Promoting agricultural insurance as an instrument can have several significant impacts, aligning with multiple SDGs. It can help stabilize farmers' income, thereby contributing to the goal of reducing poverty (SDG 1). Moreover, agricultural insurance can provide a safety net for food producers, helping them manage the impacts of climate-related risks and aligning with SDG 13, which addresses climate action. Additionally, by enhancing the resilience of farmers and ensuring more predictable income, agricultural insurance can contribute to addressing hunger (SDG 2) and ultimately create a more sustainable and prosperous agricultural sector in Africa. Therefore, this study evaluated agricultural insurance as an instrument for sustainable food supply systems in Nigeria. This study adopted a survey design. This study captured thoughts, experiences, and observations of selected agricultural underwriters in the Nigerian insurance industry through structured questionnaire. A descriptive statistic was employed in the data analysis. This study results indicated that aside from farmers’ awareness which showed some level of yardstick with respect to farmers behavioural metrics, all other metrics played no significant roles. It was also recorded that why farmers’ age, gender, family size and farming experience have no significant roles in the uptake of agricultural insurance, all other participatory factors have major effects. The study contributed significantly to knowledge with the graphical representations of the challenges confronting the agricultural insurers in Nigeria. The study provided suitable recommendations that endear achievable SDGs in Nigeria.

In recent years, the fluctuation in agricultural commodity prices in Iran is increased and thus, accurate forecasting of price change is necessary. In this article, a flexible combined method in modeling monthly prices of beef, lamb and chicken from April 2001 to March 2021, was proposed. In this new method, three different approaches namely simple averaging, discounted and shrinkage methods were effectively used to combine the forecasting outputs of three hybrid methods (MLPANN-GA, MLPANN-PSO and MLPANN-ICA) together. In implementation stage of hybrid methods, based on test and error method, the optimal MLPANN structure was found with 3/2/4–6–1 architectures and the controlling parameters are carefully assigned. The results obtained from three hybrid methods indicate that, based on the RMSE statistical index, the MLPANN-ICA method performs the best when forecasting prices for beef, lamb, and chicken. The outputs of three combination approaches show that the shrinkage method, with a parameter value of K=0.25, achieves the highest prediction accuracy when forecasting prices for these three meats. In summary, the proposed method outperforms the other three hybrid methods overall.

The prices accepted by consumers in the market are influenced by the characteristics of the goods, based on consumer behavior. Each of these features contributes to the price agreed upon by both consumers and suppliers. The packaging of a product plays a crucial role in attracting consumers and protecting the product from damage. High-quality and visually appealing packaging can create a positive perception among consumers, potentially resulting in a higher price point. Additionally, specialized packaging techniques designed to preserve freshness and extend the shelf life of oil can also impact the price. This study investigates the impact of quality and packaging on the price of sunflower oil in Iran. The primary objective was accomplished using the hedonic pricing method. Given the qualitative and ordinal nature of the dependent variable, the ordinal logit model was employed. The sample size was determined through a two-stage cluster sampling approach, which involved collecting 350 questionnaires from consumers in Tehran city. Statistical analysis was conducted using Shazam and Stata software. Numerous factors influence the consumption of sunflower oil at various levels. However, in general, factors such as increasing age, higher income levels, the presence of diseases, and dietary considerations contribute to a decrease in its consumption. On the other hand, factors like improving product quality, enhancing the quality of oil packaging, increasing consumer loyalty towards edible oil, and rising online sales of this product contribute to an increase in its demand.

Iran’s agricultural exports have grown significantly in recent years. Cropland products (HS07) have become the second most important group in Iran’s agricultural exports over the last years. However, few studies have investigated the export potentials of cropland products. Therefore, this study aims to determine the main factors of Iran’s cropland products exports and calculate the export efficiency and potential in the trading partners. For this aim, the stochastic frontier gravity model is estimated based on balanced panel data covering 21 importing countries over the period of 2001 to 2021. The results indicated that economic and physical size of importing countries have positive and significant effect on the exports of Iran’s cropland products. In addition, common border between Iran and trading partners and economic sanctions have also positive and significant effect on the cropland products exports, while geographical distance between Iran and importing countries has negatively effects on the exports. The results of export efficiency showed that Iran does not have 100 percent efficiency in any destination market over the period of 2015 to 2021. Iran has an export efficiency of more than 50 percent only in Afghanistan, United Arab Emirates, Canada and Iraq. According to the results, Iran has the highest potential for exports of cropland products in Iraq. Hence, considering the high potentials in neighboring countries and significantly positive effect of common border partners, it is suggested that trading countries with common border like Iraq should be a top priority for the exports of cropland products.