Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

DETERMINING CROP PLANTING PATTERN AND SORTING BASE ON PRIORITY FARMERS’ SUBJECTIVE

Parisa Shahinrokhsar, Amin Alizadeh, Hossein Ansary and Mohamad Ghorbany

Abstract

FarmersÂ’ mental readiness to change planting pattern and tailor it with the limiting factors is an important managerial tool in the exploitation of production resources. The climatic change and the resulting loss of water resources are among the major challenges faced by crop producers who inevitably need to plan for alternative planting patterns. The objective of the present study was to prioritize the planting of the crops by analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and farmersÂ’ subjective preferences in Astaneh-e Ashrafieh County. Data were collected with a questionnaire from 30 experienced farmers selected by the purposeful sampling. The results revealed that the most important criteria determining the crop selection in Astaneh-e Ashrafieh County are sale market and income generation in the order of importance. Also, rice and groundnut have the first and second rank in farmersÂ’ subjective preferences for crop planting, respectively, in terms of income generation, job creation, sale market, and production costs. In terms of water deficiency, groundnut and bean were ranked the first and second, respectively. Overall given all studied criteria, it was found that farmersÂ’ subjective priorities for planting pattern selection are rice, groundnut, and bean.