Evaluation of Sustainable Agricultural Development in Golestan Province

Sustainable agriculture is a scientific activity, based on ecological principles that its main purpose is to create balance and sustainability in production systems. In order to assess the status of sustainable agricultural development in Golestan province, relative advantage assessment of support systems was used. For this purpose, five support systems are constructed, including agricultural resources, agricultural development, environment and ecosystems, rural societies and sciences, education and management based on 54 indicators. In final, status of sustainable agriculture developmant of 14 townships in Golestan province was calculated by sum of these support systems. Then, the status of sustainable agriculture were zoning in ArcMap media in 6 classes (high sustainable, moderate sustainable, weak sustainable, weak unsustainable, moderate unsustainable and high unsustainable). The results showed that Golestan province was weak in terms of sustainability in agriculture resources, agriculture development, environment and ecosystems and sciences, education and management, but it hadweak unsustainable in term of rural societies. In general, it can be stated that Gorgan and Gonbad-Kavous townships had the highest sustainability in some indexes. Also, Gomishan was identified as most unsustainable township in comparison with other townships in all studied indexes except rural societies and science, education and management. The results of sustainable agriculture development showed that Golestan province had unsustainable or weak sustainable status in development of sustainable agriculture, because only 5 townships from 14 townships had high and moderate sustainable and others townships were classfied in weak sustainability or un-sustainability classes.