Measurement of sustainability of farmers of Kamin plains in Fars Province: Comparison of PCA and AHP method

Document Type : Research Paper

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Abstract

Achieving the sustainability of resources is one of the main challenges of the whole world, including our country, Iran. According to the importance of Fars province in the agricultural sector, the economic, environmental and social sustainability of Pasargad plains farmers in the region are evaluated using the positive weighting method of principal component analysis and exogenous weighting method of hierarchical analysis methods. So, economic, environmental and social sustainability indicators were estimated according to the two mentioned weighting methods for 150 farmers of the region in 2014-2015. SAFE theoretical framework has been used to choose the sustainability indexes. Comparison of the two sustainability combination indicators of AHP and PCA show that there was a statistically significant difference between indexes of economic and social sustainability in two methods. But in the field of environmental sustainability indicators, there was no statistically significant difference based on AHP and PCA. Overall, there was no statistically significant difference between the two methods based on a combination of sustainability indicators. According to the results, it is suggested to provide extension and education tools and necessary facilities such as giving loans to the farmers in order to use minimum tillage, sprinkle irrigation systems and soil test to manage and improve the quality of soil nutrients.
 

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References

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Iranian Journal of Agricultural Economics and Development Research
Volume 48, Issue 1
June 2017
Pages 23-33

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