Document Type: Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University ,
2 Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University
Abstract
Sustainable agriculture is a holistic approach to produce food, fiber, feed and fuel in a way that does not damage the environment and also must meet the needs of the present and future population of the world, while considering agro-ecosystem health, social and economic equity and profitability. Therefore, the sustainable agriculture cannot be isolated from the concept of sustainable development in any country or region. The current survey was conducted in order to study the sustainability of agricultural systems in Golestan Province in the north of Iran during the period of 2002-2011. The required data were obtained from formal statistical database. The total numerical value of sustainability was calculated for individual years using 21 different indexes. Because of the diverse nature of the selected indexes and their wide range, they were normalized to facilitate their comparison. The results show that the agricultural sustainability has been increased significantly over the studied period. The lowest value of sustainability was observed in the first year of the studied period (i.e., 2002) but the highest value was calculated for 2009 and thereafter the sustainability of agro-ecosystem has decreased slightly. The improvement of sustainability could be attributed to the application of less chemical inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers, higher water and nitrogen use efficiencies, higher yield of different crops, especially dry land crops and the higher cultivation area of nitrogen fixing species.
Graphical Abstract
 "An Assessment of the Sustainability of Agricultural Systems in Golestan Province, Iran")
Highlights
The lowest value of sustainability was observed in the first year of study and in the following years, the sustainability values gradually increased.
Increasing the amount of pesticides application has significant role in decreasing the sustainability value in the first year of study.
The most important reason for decline in application of pesticides was the higher prices of these inputs during 2007-2011 years.
Keywords
Main Subjects
Allahyari, M.S., Daghighi Masouleh, Z., & Koundinya, V. (2016). Implementing Minkowski fuzzy screening, entropy, and aggregation methods for selecting agricultural sustainability indicators. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 40(3), 277-294.
Altieri, M.A., & Nicholls, C.I. (2005). Agroecology and the search for a truly sustainable agriculture.Colonia Lomas de Virreyes, Panama City: United Nations Environmental Programme, Environmental Training Network for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Bell, S., & Morse, S. (2008). Sustainability indicators: Measuring the immeasurable? London, UK: Earthscan Press.
Binder, C.R., & Feola, G. (2013). Normative, systemic and procedural aspects: A review of indicator-based sustainability assessments in agriculture. In Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems (pp. 33-46). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Bosshaq, M.R., Afzalinia, F., & Hedayat, N. (2013). The role of effective factors in sustainable agricultural system-A case study of Minudashat in Iran. International Journal of Agriculture and Crop Sciences, 5(6), 662-666.
Capowiez, Y., Cadoux, S., Bouchant, P., Ruy, S., Roger-Estrade, J., Richard, G., & Boizard, H. (2009). The effect of tillage type and cropping system on earthworm communities, macroporosity and water infiltration. Soil and Tillage Research, 105(2), 209-216.
Chartzoulakis, K., & Bertaki, M. (2015). Sustainable water management in agriculture under climate change. Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia, 4, 88-98.
Chopra, A.K., Sharma, M.K., & Chamoli, S. (2011). Bioaccumulation of organochlorine pesticides in aquatic system-an overview. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 173(1-4), 905-916.
Drechsel, P., Heffer, P., Magen, H., Mikkelsen, R., & Wichelns, D. (2015). Managing water and fertilizer for sustainable agricultural intensification (1st Ed). Paris, France: International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI), and International Potash Institute (IPI).
Garcia-Tejero, I.F., Duran-Zuazo, V.H., Muriel-Fernandez, J.L., & Pleguezuelo, C.R.R. (2011). Water and sustainable agriculture (1st Ed). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Gaurav, S. (2015). Are rainfed agricultural households insured? Evidence from five villages in Vidarbha, India. World Development, 66, 719-736.
Gil, Y., & Sinfort, C. (2005). Emission of pesticides to the air during sprayer application: A bibliographic review. Atmospheric Environment, 39(28), 5183-5193.
Green, R.E., Cornell, S.J., Scharlemann, J.P., & Balmford, A. (2005). Farming and the fate of wild nature. Science, 307(5709), 550-555.
Häni, F. J., Stämpfli, A., Gerber, T., Porsche, H., Thalmann, C., & Studer, C. (2007). RISE: A Tool for Improving Sustainability in Agriculture. A case study with tea farmers in southern India. In Häni F.J., L. Pintér, H.R. Herren (eds.), From Common Principles to Common Practice, Proceedings and Outputs of the first Symposium of the International Forum on Assessing Sustainability in Agriculture (pp. 121-148). Bern, Switzerland: International Institute of Sustainable Development.
Jackson-Smith, D. (2010). Toward sustainable agricultural systems in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Jordan, C.F. (2013). An ecosystem approach to sustainable agriculture. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Kerr, J.M., Byerlee, D., Govindan, K., Hazell, P., Hojjati, B., Thorat, S., & Yadav, S., (1996). Sustainable development of rainfed agriculture in India. EPTD Discussion paper 20. Washington, DC. IFPRI.
Kijne, J.W., Barker, R., & Molden, D.J. (eds). (2003). Water productivity in agriculture: limits and opportunities for improvement. Wallingford, UK: CABI Publishing.
Koocheki, A., Nassiri, M., Gliessman, S.R., & Zarea, A. (2008). Agrobiodiversity of field crops: A case study for Iran. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, 32(1), 95-122.
Köhler, H.R., & Triebskorn, R. (2013). Wildlife ecotoxicology of pesticides: Can we track effects to the population level and beyond? Science, 341(6147), 759-765.
Lavasani, A., Ghanbari, A., & Asgharipour, M.R. (2015). Quantifying of ecological sustainability of greenhouse production systems in Sistan. Sustainable Agriculture and Production Science. 25(3), 31-41.
Lee, S.J., Mehler, L., Beckman, J., Diebolt-Brown, B., Prado, J., Lackovic, M., Waltz, J., Mulay, P., Schwartz, A., Mitchell, Y., & Moraga-McHaley, S. (2011). Acute pesticide illnesses associated with off-target pesticide drift from agricultural applications: 11 States, 1998-2006. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(8), 1162-1169.
Lichtfouse, E. (ed.) (2012). Farming for food and water security (Vol. 10). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.
Mahdavi Damghani, A., Koocheki, A., Rezvani Moghaddam, P., & Nassiri Mahallati, M. (2006). Studying the sustainability of a wheat-cotton agroecosystem in Iran. Asian Journal of Plant Sciences, 5, 559-562.
Ministry of Agriculture Jihad (2015). Agricultural statistics (In Persian). Retrieved 16 December, 2015 from http://www.maj.ir/ Portal/File/ShowFile.aspx?ID=d017b964-cbc7-4c70-84e6-1c928aca0b2f.
Mollinga, P. (2010). The material conditions of a polarized discourse: Clamours and silences in critical analysis of agricultural water use in India. Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (3), 414-436.
Ozier-Lafontaine, H., & Lesueur-Jannoyer, M. (2014). Sustainable agriculture reviews: Agroecology and Global Change (Vol. 14). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Popescu, G., & Jean-Vasile, A. (2015). Agricultural management strategies in a changing economy. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global.
Pretty, J. (2007). Agricultural sustainability: Concepts, principles and evidence. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 363, 447-465.
Rockström, J., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Hoff, H., Rost, S., & Gerten, D. (2009). Future water availability for global food production: The potential of green water for increasing resilience to global change. Water Resources Research, 45(7), 1-16.
Sajjad, H., Nasreen, I., & Ansari, S.A. (2014). Assessing spatiotemporal variation in agricultural sustainability using sustainable livelihood security index: Empirical illustration from Vaishali district of Bihar, India. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 38(1), 46-68.
Schneiker, J., Weisser, W.W., Settele, J., Bustamante, J.V., Marquez, L., Villareal, S., Arida, G., Van Chien, H., Heong, K.L., & Türke, M. (2016). Is there hope for sustainable management of golden apple snails, a major invasive pest in irrigated rice? NJAS-Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, 79, 11-21.
Tilman, D., Cassman, k. G. Matson, P.A., Naylor, R., & Polasky, S. (2002). Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices. Nature, 418, 671-677.
Van Buskirk, J., & Willi, Y. (2005). Met- analysis of farmland biodiversity within Set-aside land: Reply to Kleijn and Báldi. Conservation Biology, 19(3), 967-968.
Wezel, A., Casagrande, M., Celette, F., Vian, J.F., Ferrer, A., & Peigné, J. (2014). Agroecological practices for sustainable agriculture: A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 34(1), 1-20.
Xu, W., & Mage, J. A. (2001). A review of concepts and criteria for assessing agroecosystem health including a preliminary case study of southern Ontario. Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment, 83, 215-233.
Zahm, F., Viaux, P., Girardin, P., Vilain, L., & Mouchet, C. (2007). Farm sustainability assessment using the IDEA Method: From the concept of farm sustainability to the case studies on French farms. In Häni F.J., L. Pintér, H.R. Herren (eds.), From Common Principles to Common Practice, Proceedings and Outputs of the first Symposium of the International Forum on Assessing Sustainability in Agriculture (pp. 77-110). Bern, Switzerland: International Institute of Sustainable Development.
