Comparative Advantage of Production and Measuring the Competitiveness of Major Crops of Urmia County by the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the comparative advantage of production and measuring the competitiveness of major crops of Urmia County by the policy analysis matrix (PAM) in 2016-2017. The results of the comparative advantage indicators indicated that Urmia has a comparative advantage in the production of irrigated wheat, rain-fed wheat, rain-fed barley, sunflower, tomato, chickpeas, and red beans, but it has no comparative advantage in the production of irrigated barley and sugar beet among the major crops of the region. The three indicators of comparative advantage applied in this study include net social profit (NSP), domestic resource cost (DRC), and social cost-benefit index (SCB). According to the NSP index, tomato production has a higher comparative advantage over other crops, and red beans, peas, sunflowers, buckwheat, buckwheat, and barley are in the next ranks, respectively. According to the cost competitiveness index, all surveyed crops had cost competitiveness. The results of reviewing the protection indicators, including net protection coefficient input (NPCI), revealed that indirect subsidies were paid to tradable inputs for all studied crops. The nominal protection coefficient output (NPCO) index for irrigated wheat, rain-fed wheat, sunflower, rain-fed pea, and red bean indicates an indirect tax on the production of these crops by the government.