Evaluating and Comparing the Sustainability of Selected Crops Production in East Azerbaijan Province

The aim of this study was to evaluate the sustainability of selected crops cultivation in East Azerbaijan province. Evaluation of agricultural sustainability is an important step to develop the sustainable cultivation patterns and optimal use of water and soil resources in the province.

In order to evaluate the sustainability of agricultural production, a combination of entropy and EIECTRE methods was used. The required statistics and information were collected by referring to the Jihad-Agriculture organisation of East Azerbaijan province in 2016.

Irrigation efficiency, percentage of crop insurance coverage, land productivity and consumption of phosphate fertilizer were recognized as the most important indicators of agricultural production sustainability, which accounted for more than 50 percent of the relative weight of the indicators. The comparison of sustainability of crops production showed that sugar beet, safflower, forage corn, buckwheat and cotton had higher agricultural sustainability than other crops.

The cultivation of industrial and forage plants have more agricultural sustainability compared to other common crops in the province and in contrast the cultivation of rapeseed and alfalfa have no advantage in terms of agricultural sustainability in East Azerbaijan province. Therefore it is expected to consider these results in the future plannings of cropping pattern. Also, by increasing the irrigation efficiency and promoting the crop insurance among the farmers of the province, it is possible to increase the production sustainability of other crops.