Changes in wheat production technology and the impact on the rural economy in Fars Province

Introduction The increasing population growth and the need for more agricultural products on the one hand, and on the other hand, the limitations of agricultural development are problems that human beings have always tried to solve. Due to the limited resources and inputs of production, it seems that further production growth is possible through advanced technologies. In fact, technology is something beyond the method of production and its processes; Technology is a mixture of knowledge, skill and technical ability. In fact, technology is something beyond the method of production and its processes; Technology is a mixture of knowledge, skill and technical ability. The use of technology can increase productivity, increase labor productivity, reduce production costs and reduce hassle of labor, hence encouraging villagers to continue agricultural activities.  Therefore, the development of technology will play an important role in development strategies and rural economy.  Based on the translog cost function, technological changes can be divided into three components: pure technical change, non-neutral, and scale expansion. Recognizing the changes in technology governing wheat farmers for this matter, and its growth rate to help improve and strengthen their status and provide analyzes based on economic principles should be considered. Among agricultural products, wheat is considered a strategic product and has more than 50% of the total cultivation area of Iranian grain crops.  Fars Province is the second province in terms of wheat production in Iran. Despite the high capability of wheat production in Iran, this province has changed its position in production due to instable production. Thus, addressing the issue of technological changes that can affect wheat production is of particular importance. Also, in Fars Province, zoning plan of production areas was carried out in 2013 with the aim of transferring new knowledge to producers in the agricultural sector in small managerial areas called zones. In addition to the zoning plan in Fars Province (cities), in this research, an attempt has been made to address the changes in wheat farmerschr('39') technology and its impact on the rural economy using the geographical weight regression method. Methodology The current study is descriptive-analytical and applied in terms of aim. The data collection tool is in the form of documents which according to the information obtained from the experts of Fars Agricultural-Jahad organization during the period 2013-2018. First, the distance between cities was created using a Google Earth software to form a weight matrix; Then, the model was estimated with the translog cost function and by considering the weight matrix and the geographical weight regression method in Stata16 software. The statistical population of the study is wheat farmers in the cities of Fars Province, which is divided into 612 parcels. Now, after several years of implementation of this plan (zoning of Fars province), technology changes by its components (pure technical change, non-neutral change and scale expansion) to produce wheat in Fars Province was examined using weight regression approach Geographical (GWR). Because each implementation of technology change requires special policies, calculating technology changes by its components is vital and necessary.   Discussion and conclusion The results of estimating the translog cost function by geographical regression model showed that seed, soil and water elasticity at the level of one percent and toxin elasticity at the level of five percent are significant. High coefficient of determination is also a good sign of fitness. Evaluation of the results of calculating technology changes shows that in the study period and with a geographical regression approach, the average progress of wheat technology in the rural economy of the province sums to 0.001. In addition, the average growth rates of pure technical change, non-neutral scale expansion are -0.005, 0.021 and -0.15, respectively. The share of the effect of non-neutral technical change rate in technology changes is greater than the share of pure technical change and scale expansion. As the results show, the average growth of technology is not significant, which can be attributed to the lack of convergence of the average growth rate of non-neutral technical change and pure technical change and scale expansion. In fact, this level of technological advancement has not been able to have much positive effect on the rural economy in Fars Province. According to the results, it is suggested that for the growth of new technology, investment in mechanization infrastructure such as leveling, drainage, land consolidation and lending to be used to better use equipment and production facilities and benefit from the optimal scale of production because in practice, the performance of new technologies will be negligible if these issues won’t be considered. In addition, the results show that cities; Marvdasht, Arsanjan, Kazerun, Sarvestan and Kharameh, which are located near the center of the province (Shiraz), have had the greatest impact due to technological changes in the rural economy, because they have more facilities. Abadeh, Neyriz, Mehr, Farashband and Rostam, which are located in the marginal areas of Fars Province, had the lowest average of technological changes in the regionchr('39')s economy, because they had less access to the use of new technologies. In addition, the results of neutral change lead to cost savings on the production factors.  In other words, technological changes have been able to manage the use of inputs to reduce production costs.