Introduction: Self-sufficiency in production of agricultural products has always been a controversial topic in political economy studies.In Article 31 of the Law on Increasing the Productivity of Agriculture and Natural Resources approved on 2010 by the Islamic Parliament of I.R. Iran (IPIRI), by dividing agricultural products into strategic, special and regional specific, the scope of government intervention has been reduced and the self-sufficiency goals have been limited to only strategic products.Although this issue has led to the relative closeness of the views of the supporters and opponents of public sector interventions in economic activities, the degree of this closeness was still not enough to design and introduce the intervention model and how to implement it, so that it has the ability to provide economic and political considerations simultaneously.This issue entered a new stage with the notification of the agricultural crop cultivation pattern program for crops of 2022-2023 in 2022 and the instructions for monitoring the implementation of the National Crop Cultivation Pattern (NCCP) in the winter of 2022.The review of the studies showed that the topic of optimality was different according to assumptions, conditions and places; and they mostly compared the current situation with the ideal situation while the way to achieve the goals and the time required for this purpose were usually ignored to be defined.In practice, experiences showed that it would be difficult to change the cultivation pattern and there were many resistances in this regard.According to the budget program of 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture-Jahad (MAJ) was obliged to announce the optimal pattern of cultivation of agricultural and horticultural crops by city and province.In this regard, taking into account the water requirements of crops, land suitability information and relative advantage information, the optimal cultivation pattern for the cropping year go 2022-2023 in cooperation with the Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO).Due to the complexity, extent and variety of policies such as mechanization rate, development of new irrigation systems, education and extenssion activities, optimal use of fertilizers and other issues, the quality of program implementation has faced many challenges.Considering that in practice as one of the prominent features of NCCP, the subject of its revision and reconsideration is always the focus of program managers.In the first year of the NCCP implementation, only agricultural products were targeted and planning for adding garden products and other requirements has been assigned to the coming years.The NCCP is based on National Food Security Document (NFSD), in which quantitative and qualitative limitations such as water and soil, land capacity, performance gap and effective technical, executive, financial, political and software factors are taken into account.Economic factors, natural factors and resources factors (including climate, water and soil resources), environmental factors, social factors, and government policy factors were taken into account in the formulation of the NCCP model, which was carried out using the multi-objective planning model with the aim of maximizing gross income and water consumption efficiency.The economic evaluation of this large project at the country level is necessary according to the amounts of resources allocated to it in order to ensure the achievement of the concerned goals.In this regard, the present study addressed the economic evaluation of the implementation of the NCCP in East Azerbaijan province in the cropping year of 2022-2023.In addition, in this study, three scenarios including the basic scenario, the realized scenario, and the planned scenario were considered as well as the economic effects of program implementation were examined at micro and macro levels.In order to control the outputs resulting from the implementation of the NCCP program with the aforementioned goals and approaches, the study developed a program evaluation model, which was briefly referred to as MAB.In addition to the ability to evaluate the program, this model also provided the possibility of simulating and predicting the results of the implementation of agricultural policies in the form of the national cultivation model.By defining the time horizon, the MAB model had the ability to identify the short-term and long-term effects of program implementation.Among other prominent features of the model, we can mention its dynamics and ability to identify the impact of program implementation on macroeconomic variables such as economic growth and employment.
Materials and Methods: As mentioned ealier, in this research, the topics were realized in three scenarios of cultivated area management (scenario 1), cultivated area management along with yield management (scenario 2) and cultivated area management along with yield management and fertilizer consumption (scenario 3) in three levels of the basic, realized and program situations. In order to calculate and evaluate the impact of the implementation of the NCCP program on agricultural profitability at the farm and macro levels in the cultivation sub-sector of East Azerbaijan province of Iran, the internal rate of return on investment in the production of agricultural products was calculated in a ten-year period. For this purpose, the cultivation sub-sector of the province was included as a production unit in which a set of products was produced using common inputs. By introducing the group of users of each product together and allocating the cost and income of each group separately, in addition to examining the changes in the livelihood situation at the micro level, it would be possible to analyze this issue at the macro level of the cultivation sub-sector over time. Considering that all changes resulting from the implementation of policies related to the cultivation pattern had short-term and long-term effects, as a result, the estimation of these changes would be necessary for the effective evaluation of the NCCP program.
Results and Discussion: The optimal cultivation program has diverse and sometimes conflicting goals. At the level of implementation, management of cultivated area and implementation of cheap fertilizer policy are relatively more attractive compared to other goals. What is important in the evaluation of the optimal cultivation pattern program is to simultaneously pay attention to all aspects of the program so that by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the program, the productivity management cycle can be managed in a practical way in the country's agriculture sector. The results of the research showed how only paying attention to the management of cultivated area could lead planners away from the goals of the program and affect profitability, economic growth, employment, water consumption and other key variables.
Conclusion and Suggestions:The study findings indicated that managing and improving the knowledge influence rate gave the most benefit to the operators and planners from the implementation of the optimal cultivation model at the micro and macro levels.According to the findings of the research, the gross economic growth under the cultivation sub-sector of East Azerbaijan province was estimated about 3.72 percent, and the share of productivity (net economic growth) was equal to 2.48 percent.According to the plan, the predicted gross economic growth was 8.22 percent and the share of productivity was 7.23 percent.In other words, due to the use of more agricultural inputs, the goal of economic growth has almost been realized, and in contrast, there is still a significant gap in productivity.This point shows the significant role of improving productivity to achieve 8 percent growth in the agricultural economy of East Azerbaijan province in the coming years.