Assessing the Effective Factors on the Yield of Strategic Agricultural Products (wheat and barley) in Khorasan Razavi Province

Abstract: 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.