The trend and nature of technological change in the poultry industry of Iran

Abstract
Introduction: The growing population and increasing demand for agricultural products, including protein products such as chicken meat due to limited resources, have made it necessary to improve the productivity of inputs. Since the technological change is one of the significant components of productivity change, therefor, the present study was conducted to evaluate the trend and nature of technological change in the Iranian poultry industry.
Material and methods: For this purpose, required data were collected from 27 provinces during the period 1996-2017. In the present study, a cost function approach is used as a basis for estimating technological change using panel data. Technological change may be neutral or biased, depending on how the relationship between inputs is affected. The estimation is based on an output and multi-input Translog cost function. The Translog function has the advantage of being a flexible functional form. The parameters of the cost function were estimated on the basis of the model system including the cost function and four of the five share equations using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE). The estimation was performed imposing the normal symmetry conditions. The F-Limer test is used to measure whether the data are panel or pooled. Then the Hausman test is then used to determine the use of the fixed or random effects model. In order to estimating the system of equations, one of the equations of input cost share is eliminated and all cost function equations and share of input demand are estimated simultaneously. In the model used, the price of all inputs was divided by the price of one-day-old chickens.
Results and discussion: The estimation of the models performed relatively well. There was a very high degree of explanation, and most of the parameters had the expected sign. The estimation gave a very high degree of explanation, so that the value of R2 was equal to 0.96. The rate of technological change in some provinces that used the latest technology was above the national average. A negative sign in technological change indicates a decrease in the growth of production costs over time. Thus, it can be seen that the improvement of technology, the use of new production methods as symbols of technology, has reduced the cost of the poultry industry. Using the original breed of day-old chickens, poultry feed and high-quality materials, benefiting from efficient heating and cooling system are among the symbols of technological change. This shows that by using different forms of technology, poultry units have been able to increase the amount of chicken meat production. The rate of technology change has been declining until 2014 and reached its minimum in that year. That is, in 2014, compared to other years, the cost of producing each unit of chicken meat in poultry farms in different provinces of the country has decreased. The results of pure technological change showed that in all years under review, the amount of neutral technological change was positive and its average was 0.93. In general, it can be said that the process of changing pure technology over time has increased the production cost. The results of changing the input biased technological change showed that its average values were -0.26. Thus, it can be said that in the production of broiler chicken, technological developments have led to savings in production factors. the average rate of technology change was -1.61 percent over the mentioned time period, which means that in the study period the rate of cost change of production units has been decreased. Since cost elasticity was less than one (0.37), so the production is faced with the increasing return to scale. Therefore, the reduction in the cost causes economic savings in the production process. Material and methods: For this purpose, required data were collected from 27 provinces during the period 1996-2017. In the present study, a cost function approach is used as a basis for estimating technological change using panel data. Technological change may be neutral or biased, depending on how the relationship between inputs is affected. The estimation is based on an output and multi-input Translog cost function. The Translog function has the advantage of being a flexible functional form. The parameters of the cost function were estimated on the basis of the model system including the cost function and four of the five share equations using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SURE). The estimation was performed imposing the normal symmetry conditions. The F-Limer test is used to measure whether the data are panel or pooled. Then the Hausman test is then used to determine the use of the fixed or random effects model. In order to estimating the system of equations, one of the equations of input cost share is eliminated and all cost function equations and share of input demand are estimated simultaneously. In the model used, the price of all inputs was divided by the price of one-day-old chickens.
Conclusion: According to the results of this research, the technology has changed in order to use more poultry feed; In other words, the technological change in the Iranian poultry industry is energy and labor saving. The results of cost elasticity, which was less than one, showed that product production in these units has an upward return to scale, so it confirms the existence of economies of scale in the poultry industry. Finally, it is suggested that the poultry industry utilizes the new technology and increases the production scale in order to access comparative advantage.