Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Agricultural Mechanization, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2 Professor
Abstract
Reduced rainfall, the crisis of Lake Urmia, and the shortage of available agricultural water have intensified environmental concerns among farmers. These crises have adversely affected agriculture to the extent that the country has experienced a decline in food security at the production level. This issue can be attributed to the utilization of Lake Urmia's water for selecting new crops. Therefore, it is essential to revisit the decision-making criteria of farmers in West Azerbaijan Province for crop selection. By collecting and coding data from semi-structured interviews with farmers from various regions of the province, five main criteria were identified: economic, environmental, technological, social, and political, along with their associated sub-criteria. Variance analysis of the data, conducted using Python programming, revealed that literacy level and age significantly influenced the prioritization of criteria at a one-percent significance level, while geographical location did not have a significant effect. The weighting of criteria and sub-criteria was performed using the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The results showed that "environment" and "economy," with weights of 0.398820 and 0.325670 respectively, were the most important criteria for farmers. Within the environmental criterion, "water requirements" was identified as the most important sub-criterion, while "land degradation and soil weakening" received the least importance. This could be due to water scarcity in recent years and the challenges farmers face in ensuring water availability. Considering the importance of profitability as a short-term necessity for farmers, there is a need to focus on long-term priorities that encompass ecosystem sustainability goals.
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