Environmental and economic risk management of seed maize production in Iran

Abstract

Seed maize, as one of the most fundamental agricultural cereals with an important strategic status and function, is cultivated as an important crop in all Iranian provinces, and the government contributes to the sustainable planting of the crop by mitigating its revenue risk. However, sustainable production management of the product is impossible without taking into account environmental risks. Therefore, the present research aims to determine the status of each province relative to other provinces in seed maize production considering economic and environmental risk management, specifically the trade–off between economic and environmental risk by using Water Footprint (WF) as an environmental criterion and Gross Margin (GM) as an economic criterion. Iranian provinces were ranked using Second-Degree Stochastic Dominance (SSD) and Stochastic Dominance with Respect to a Function (SDRF) from an economic and environmental perspective and their trade-offs. According to the results, seed maize production in Iranian provinces is practiced without concomitant consideration of economic and environmental risks, which will not lead to long-run sustainable production. Areas were generally divided into three groups by comparing with current conditions, areas with high economic risk and environmental stability, vice versa and areas with less economic and environmental risk. Therefore, in order to manage the sustainable production of seed maize, different policies should be suggested in different areas.