A Comprehensive Framework in Sustainability Assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems

Introduction Lack of a comprehensive framework is one of the most important challenges in sustainability assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems. This is the reason of tunnel vision in many researches in the field of sustainability. The history of Agricultural Exploitation Systems in Iran is back to thousands years ago, when ancient Iranian tried to domesticate wild animals and cereals in Iran. So, Agricultural Exploitation Systems are one of the fundamental issues in Iran’s agriculture section and these systems are of great importance in agricultural development of the country and even in urban development. Studies show that since very beginning, governments focused their attention on this system because of its potentials and capabilities such as production, job creation, and generating income and this caused major changes and development. According to the performed studies, there are different frameworks for sustainability assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems. Most of these frameworks consider the sustainability issue not holistically and try to investigate the sustainability issue just in economic, social and environmental dimensions. In these frameworks, some dimensions of sustainability are highlighted, while highlighting some dimensions is in contradiction to holistic view in sustainability assessment. Therefore, this study aims to introduce those frameworks that are related to sustainability assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems and considers their inefficiencies and it also aims to introduce a comprehensive framework. Methodology By using a critical method, this qualitative and quantitative study tries to introduce a comprehensive framework to assess sustainability of Agricultural Exploitation Systems; By using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, this study gives weight to the existing criteria and sub-criterion in the recognized framework. To do so, two criteria were used for selecting the experts: First, recognized people have experiences in field studies in the case of Agricultural Exploitation Systems; they also have some documentary researches such as article, book an research projects. In this stage, different methods of sampling have been used including criterion-based sampling, snowball sampling and opportunistic sampling. Following that, participants were asked to perform pairwise comparisons in criteria and sub-criterion level; and to calculate fuzzy numbers in FAHP, Kong & Liu method has been used. Discussion and Conclusion Among four criteria that are effective in sustainability of Agricultural Exploitation Systems, management, capitals, vulnerability and tensions are the most important ones respectively. Based on experts’ comments, management issue is the most important criteria among all other criteria. In fact, management is a determinant factor in providing or not providing sustainability in the system; So, this is one of the most important issues is sustainability assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems that needs more consideration. Fuzzy comparison matrix and deriving weights of these criteria showed that social capacity as a sub-criterion in deriving weights is the most importance criteria. Capital is the second effective criteria in assessment of agricultural farming sustainability and it is rarely mentioned in other presented frameworks. Fuzzy ranking of various capitals showed that human capital is weighted as the most important capital. This finding confirms that development tools are not located in mountains, plains an under the ground but they must be investigated inside the human brain. Performing fuzzy comparisons in the case of tension as a sub-criterion showed that productivity is the most important criteria in determining Agricultural Exploitation Systems. Other sub-criterion are stability, compatibility, flexibility and reliability respectively. Deriving weights of subcriterion in the case of vulnerability showed that vulnerability in economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities are the most important criteria for sustainability assessmentof Agricultural Exploitation Systems. According to the obtained results, it is recommended to use the proposed framework and the derived weights as the standards for sustainability assessment of Agricultural Exploitation Systems.