Prioritizing and Investigating Economic-Environmental Dimensions of Renewable Energy Use in Agriculture

The agricultural sector relies heavily on energy consumption to meet the growing need for food. One of the challenges of sustainable agriculture is that the majority of farmers still use fossil energy. Carbon dioxide emissions in Iran have caused $ 26.27 billion in damage to the country, of which $ 1.57 billion is the share of the agricultural sector. The final energy consumption per capita in Iran's agricultural sector is 3.3 times the global average. Therefore, energy use in the country is very important. This study prioritized renewable energies in the agricultural sector of the north of Iran (Golestan, Mazandaran, and Guilan) using the Entropy weighting technique and the TOPSIS method. The information required for this study was collected using a Delphi method from 39 experts and five types of renewable energy and five criteria. The results showed that the Prioritization of energies are solar energy, wind energy, biomass energy, hydropower, and geothermal energy and Environmental, political, social, technical and economic criteria rank first to fifth in importance, respectively.