An Evaluation of Sustainability Analysis of Rainfed Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)Production Systems in Iran

IntroductionWheat and barley are important strategic crops that constitute the staple food of the world population including Iranian people. Given the role of these crops in the household food basket, food safety and self-sufficiency in the production of these crops can be an important and valuable step towards economic independence. Increasing agricultural production due to the use of chemical inputs causes serious damage to the environment. Therefore, any plan and policy to increase production, in addition to technical and economic aspects, must also be analyzed from an environmental perspective. Considering the importance of this issue, the present study aims to investigate the sustainability of rainfed wheat and barley production using the multifunctional ecological footprint (EF). The results can provide useful information to agricultural planners and policymakers.Materials and MethodsTo analyze sustainability, data from Agricultural Statistics of 2017 and the statistics published in domestic databases were used. In the agricultural sector, the footprint indicator should reflect the type of agricultural operations and land use. Accordingly, the EF is divided into two parts: direct and indirect parts of the footprint. The direct footprint indicates the amount of land, buildings, forests, and rangelands for crop production that is defined as the amount of bio-productive area. The indirect footprint represents the amount of bio-productive land used to absorb the amount of CO2 emitted during crop production and agricultural operations.Other aspects and benefits of EF are the use of different functional units that can provide researchers with broader analytical backgrounds. For this purpose, evaluating EF based on a ton of crops, 10,000 Rials income and benefits in the field were also calculated using divided EF by each of the different functional units.Results and DiscussionConcerning rainfed wheat production, Alborz, Mazandaran, and Golestan provinces had the highest emissions by 1632, 1140 and 860 kgCO2eq, respectively and Sistan and Baluchestan, South Khorasan and Qom provinces had the lowest emissions. Concerning rainfed barley production, Markazi, Hamedan, and Mazandaran provinces emitted 989, 869, and 775 kg CO2eq, respectively, so that they were ranked first whereas Sistan and Baluchestan, South Khorasan and Isfahan provinces with 236, 263 and 298 kg CO2eq had the lowest emissions. EF for rainfed wheat production ranges from 2.57 in South Khorasan to 2.87 in Alborz. EF for rainfed barley ranges from 2.57 in South Khorasan to 2.73 in Markazi. With respect to rainfed wheat and barley production, on-farm emissions had a higher share in indirect EF than off-farm emissions. EF for one ton of rainfed wheat varied from 0.75 Gha in Mazandaran province to 10.85 Gha in South Khorasan province. EF yield of rainfed barley production indicates that Fars, Isfahan, and South Khorasan provinces are in the most unsustainable conditions for producing one ton of rainfed barley.The results of correlation between EF and yield EF and benefit revealed a significant relationship between EF of rainfed wheat and barley in provinces at the 1% probability level. Also, there was a significant relationship between EF and yield EF in rainfed wheat at the 5% probability level, but this relation was not significant for rainfed barley. Also, the lack of a significant relationship between EF yield and EF profit shows that an increase in crop yield would not necessarily lead to an increase in the benefit of rainfed wheat and barley.ConclusionThe comparison of EF indices and correlation between them showed that increasing inputs in rainfed wheat could increase yield, but it had no effect on barley yield enhancement. On the other hand, no statistically significant relationship between EF yield and benefit showed that yield increase does not necessarily lead to higher profitability. Therefore, cost management is one of the key elements in increasing the profitability of rainfed cereal production at the national level. Therefore, to increase the sustainability of rainfed cereal production at the national level, apart from planning to increase yield, policy-making for efficient use of resources and reducing production costs should be considered a key basis in production planning and policy-making.