Investigating total factor productivity of agricultural crops in Iran – a case study

Today, all countries try to get productivity improvement so that getting economic growth via improving productivity is one of their most important goals. Governments pursue more productionby consuming fewer resources. In Iran, it is needed to pay special attention to agricultural sector asone of the important economic sectors because improving its productivity could help us to get bettereconomic development. In this study, the growth rate of total factor productivity for wheat, barley,potato and rice as strategic crops of province Isfahan were measured and analyzed for the period 2000-2009. Laspeyres, Paasche, Fisher and Tornqvist indexes and time series data were used. As the results show, based on the Fisher index, average total factor productivity growth for rain-fed and irrigated wheat rain-fed and irrigated barley, potato and rice are -0.17, 0.005, -0.01, 0.01, -0.09 and0.04 and based on the Tornqvist index, average total factor productivity growth for rain-fed and irrigated wheat rain-fed and irrigated barley, potato and rice are -0.08, 0.01, -0.11, -0.02, -0.07 and 0.01 respectively. Also the results show that irrigated crops have more productivity growth relative to rain-fed crops. Also, using different indexes show different results for all crops

Keywords:

Gorgan county , index numbers , total factor productivity