Evaluation of Some Sustainability Indices in Khuzestan, Agro-Industries Using Multi-Criteria Decision Making Case Study: Maize, Wheat and Sugarcane

In assessment of agricultural sustainability, all environmental, economic, social and technical aspects must be taken into account. The purpose of this study is to evaluate and compare the sustainability of wheat, corn and sugarcane production in Khuzestan agro-industries. Data were collected from Shahid Rajaie and Debel khazai agro-industries. Indicators such as energy, the risk of chemical fertilizers and biocide pollution, the risk of soil compaction due to machines, air pollution, and employment were used to compare and evaluate the sustainability of farms. For integrated and comprehensive assessment of indicators and farms ranking, the TOPSIS methods were used. Although these indicators and multi-criteria methods did not show a complete overview of sustainability farms, but they were effective in comparing the sustainability of farms and improving their sustainability. The results showed that employment, the risk of soil compaction and nitrogen fertilizer, air pollution and energy indicators had the most important role in the sustainability of farms, respectively. In the wheat farms, except for employment, other indices were better than other farms. The risk of soil compaction due to agricultural machinery in sugarcane farms had been high and had become one of the main problems of these farms .On the other hand, employment in the sugarcane production per hectare was much higher than the production of wheat and corn. The sensitivity analysis showed that the sustainability of farms was very sensitive to the employment, so with a reduction of 25.39% in weight of employment indicator, sugarcane farms were ranked the last.