Agricultural Sustainability Assessment in Iran by Using Sustainability Composite Index

Assessment of agriculture sustainability and recognizing weaknesses and strengths in each region can help legislators in adopting policies and strategies that correspond to the current situation. The purpose of this study is to assess the Iran’s agriculture sustainability through sustainable agriculture indicators in five groups economic, social, environmental, technical and policy. In order to achieve this goal, using a stable composite index and measurement of weights based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the overall level of agriculture sustainability has been determined for the first time in during the period of 2005-2015. The results showed that the agriculture sustainability combined index in Iran whit a mean of 0.521 is in the average level of sustainability and the trend of this index over the years studied has increased from 0.41 to 0.65 at a rate of 0.415. The provinces of Fars, Khorasan Razavi and East Azarbayegan have the best stability status respectively with 0.683, 0.653 and 0.625 and the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, South Khorasan and Hormozgan with 0.348, 0.374 and 0.397 have the weakest agriculture sustainability respectively. According to the average level of agricultural sustainability, is necessary to the custodians of the agriculture sector with invest in production infrastructure such as seed, fertilizer, use of modern irrigation systems and appropriate agricultural method take steps for agricultural sustainability development.