Fish-Products Consumption Economics in North-West of Iran

Research PaperIn natural resource economics, we sometimes observe a situation in which producers and consumers have\ud direct access to the factors of production or can use some consumable products with little or no\ud transformation. These goods are commonly referred to as “gifts of nature”. A factor of production is\ud considered a gift of nature when little effort is required to make it usable; thus one would expect the\ud appearance of under-pricing, over-utilization and/or over-consumption. Fish products, the results of fish\ud culture, to some extent have such characteristics in Iran, where it is the output of a joint production\ud process. In this country, fish is being produced using our excess capacity in water resources, with some\ud more organic residuals where these are used in the other joint enterprises of farming or horticulture.\ud Moreover, fish products have many recognized biological and physiological advantages; thus scientists\ud view them as good sources of protein for human consumption. Iran is in relative deficit of this type of\ud nutritious, high-protein product. But unfortunately, some available estimates suggest that the Iranian\ud consumer’s inclination toward the consumption of fish products is not very promising. To develop a\ud workable policy design to help policy makers to persuade Iranian consumers to purchase fish, a field\ud research project was planned and executed in Northwest Iran. Almost 500 fish consumers were\ud interviewed; the data gathered on the economic aspects of fish-consumption model in this region are\ud analyzed in this paper. It is revealed that the rate of consumption here is lower than both the average\ud national level and the average global level. This norm of consumption is correlated to some sociocultural-\ud behavioral-economic factors. Policy-makers could make use of this model to persuade consumers\ud to make better use of this “gift of nature” within the target group