Evaluating and Selecting the Best Method of Weeding in Rice Farm Using TOPSIS Ranking Technique

In order to evaluate the selection of the best method for rice cultivation from among different methods including: manual weeding, chemical control and mechanical weeding, questionnaires were distributed among farmers and experts of Sowme'eh Sara city in Guilan province. A quantitative and qualitative integration approach was used to analyze the data, and the characteristics were weighed using the entropy method. The comfort of the labor, the amount of environmental pollution, the number of labors needed and the cost have the highest weights, which indicates the importance of these cases for farmers and experts. Multi-indicator methods have a variety of methods at different stages of decision making. In these methods, several options are compared based on several different criteria, and finally the best option or sequence of appropriate options is selected. Using the TOPSIS method, ranking was performed between different weeding methods. The results showed that the highest degree of impact is related to the mechanical weeder with 0.7221, followed by chemical control and manual weeding with importance degree of 0.5019 and 0.3730, respectively. Efforts and support from officials in management, providing skills training, proper culture, and budget allocation for farmers are effective and effective solutions.