Investigating the Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Crop Subsector

Overexploitation of water resources and the excessive use of chemical inputs have negative effects on the sustainability of developing countries. To assess crop sustainability, the total factor productivity (TFP) indicator was used to evaluate the regional sustainability of the crop subsector, considering nitrogen fertilizer surplus emissions and groundwater loss in Fars province, Iran. The relative weight of each sustainability indicator was assigned by means of the information provided by a panel of experts, using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Also, the sustainability scores were estimated and compared for the period of 1995–2015. The study also measures the economic and environmental crop sustainability using adjusted TFP, considering nitrogen surplus through data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach to find whether the nitrogen surplus, as an important environmental parameter, has an impact on the TFP growth at the local level during 2012 to 2015. Then, the non-negative trend in the adjusted TFP — instead of conventional TFP — has been applied to evaluate the sustainability of agricultural system. The results of the sustainability investigation revealed a descending trend with fluctuations for sustainability during the period at the regional level. In addition, it was found that the crop subsector has followed an unsustainable path due to the intensive use of nitrogen fertilizer at the local level. Thus, the unsustainable trend on the regional scale is validated by the unsustainability path of local one. In general, the adopted approach can encourage further studies to assist researchers and policymakers in addressing the sustainability of the related agricultural systems.