Economic Valuation of Forage Production of Rehabilitated Rangelandsin Sarbisheh city in South Khorasan province

Forage production is the main product of rangeland and a valuable tangible commodity whose economic valuation in rehabilitated rangelands, due to its direct use for grazing and livestock production, can play an important role in management planning. In this regard, the present study was conducted with the aim of economic evaluation of forage production of regenerated rangelands in arid areas in Sarbisheh City in west Khorasan province. For this purpose, the plantation projects in the west of this city were selected as Hosseinabad, Nazdasht, and Jannatabad. Then, while determining the representative area in each project, three 300- meter transects at a distance of 10 meters were established in a random-systematic manner, and during each transect produced this year, the species used for livestock were harvested by cutting and weighing. After drying the plant samples and weighing each sample, taking into account the palatability and preference value, the allowable utilization limit was determined, and the amount of available forage was determined. The hedonic method was used for the economic evaluation of forage production. For this purpose, first, a regression relationship between livestock input prices and TDN was extracted. Then, by including the TDN of rangeland species in each project, using the metabolic energy data of the National Plan for Determining the Forage Quality of Rangeland Plants, the economic value of forage production was determined. The results showed that the price of each kilogram of fodder is 10466.5 Tomans. Based on this, the economic value of forage for each hectare of rehabilitated rangelands was 318223 Tomans, and the total economic value for the rehabilitated rangelands studied was estimated to be 1,386,498,185 Tomans. The results of this study can further reveal the role of investment in rangeland and even be used to provide new solutions for the financial participation of the government and farmers. Of course, in addition to the environmental economics of rangelands, it is necessary to pay attention to their performance and ecological potential to achieve the goal of both users and managers and experts of natural resources in the long run.