Comparison of Sustainability in Agroecosystem and Natural Habitat of Shallot Based in Aleshtar, Lorestan province based on Emergy Analysis

Better understanding the sustainability of production systems is of particular importance for making the right decisions and managing them. To avoid the extinction of plants in natural habitats and to meet the needs of the pharmaceutical-industrial market of these plants, the paradigm of their production in agricultural systems was created. The overarching goal of this research was to compare the ecological-economic sustainability of conservation agroecosystem and natural habitat of the shallot based analysis of the structure and the emergy-based indicators in Aleshtar, Iran.

This study was conducted in 2019-2020 in a conservation agroecosystem and a natural habitat of wild shallot plants in Aleshtar city, Lorestan province, based on structure analysis and review of nine emergy indices.

The result of comparing the emergy input structure indicated that despite the fact that the Unit Emergy Value ( UEV), Specific Emergy ( SE), Emergy to Money Ratio (EMR) and Emergy Exchange Ratio of Yield (EER) are higher in the agroecosystem compared to the natural habitat, the value of the Environmental Loading Ratio (ELR) showed more sustainability of the agroecosystem compared to the natural habitat. Another result was the equality of quality of produced shallots in the agroecosystem and natural habitat based on the Emergy index of agricultural product safety(EIPS) index.