Development a Framework for Assessing the Sustainability of Agricultural Projects Applying for the Agricultural Bank's Credits

The facilities allocated to agricultural projects can play a key role in the sustainable development of agriculture if they are subjected to a detailed economic, social and environmental assessment. The purpose of the research was to provide a framework for evaluating the sustainability of agricultural projects applying for the Agricultural Bank facilities. The statistical population included the faculties and facility experts of the Agricultural Bank. Using a targeted sampling, 30 people were selected includes: 15 university faculties with expertised in sustainable agriculture and 15 facilites experts in the supervision and various branches of the Agricultural Bank of West Azarbaijan Province. The analytical hierarchical process method was used with two scenarios of experts and faculties. In order to identify and weight the sustainability criteria and sub-criteria of agricultural projects, a questionnaire tool was used. Also, three selected agricultural projects were considered for sustainability evaluation. Based on the results, the inconsistency rate (CR) value for both faculties and experts was calculated as 0.00, which was less than 0.1, so the consistency of the results was confirmed. A combined economic, social and environmental index was introduced to evaluate the alignment of agricultural projects with sustainable development. The results indicated that university faculties prioritize environmental issues in the evaluation of projects, while experts consider economic issues to be more important. In both scenarios the project's financial resources, social capital and water consumption from the economic, social and environmental aspects had the most weights in the evaluation of agricultural sustainability. In addition, the greenhouse banana project is the first priority of sustainability and the projects of growing rose cut flowers and hydroponic cucumbers were in the next ranks, respectively. Therefore, if the allocation of facilities is done in the same order and share, it will have the least negative economic, social and environmental effects.
1-Introduction
The facilities allocated to agricultural projects can play a key role in the sustainable development of agriculture and consequently sustainable development if they are subjected to a detailed economic, social and environmental evaluation. The purpose of this research is to provide a framework for evaluating the sustainability of agricultural projects applying for the facilities of the Agricultural Bank.
 
2-Materials and Methods
The statistical population includes university faculty members and experts in the Agricultural Bank in West Azerbaijan Province. Using a targeted sampling, 30 people were selected includes: 15 faculties with expertise related to various aspects of sustainable agriculture and 15 experts who had sufficient experience in the field of agricultural facilities and credits. The analytical hierarchical process method was used in the form of two scenarios of experts and faculties. In order to identify and weighting the sustainability criteria and sub-criteria of agricultural projects, a questionnaire tool was used. The questionnaire included economic, social and environmental indicators. The economic index includes six indicators of financial resources, project structure, value chain, risk, relative advantage and insurance and fourteen sub-criteria including income/capital, gross profit/capital, benefit-cost ratio, personal capital, attraction of financial resources, investment return period, and unit size, degree of mechanization, project infrastructure, product diversity and specialized human resources and provision of inputs, dependent industries, sales market. The social index includes seven criteria including age, education, side job, employment, food security, migration and social capital, which social capital includes five sub-criteria namely, social trust, participation and organization, social cohesion, relationship network and equity. The environmental index includes six criteria of land use change, water consumption, chemical fertilizer consumption, pesticide consumption, agroecological activities and farm management and type of cropping system, as well as eight sub-criteria including nitrogen, phosphate, potash, other fertilizers and insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides, integrated agriculture and organic crop production were related to the type of agricultural system. Also, three selected agricultural projects were considered for sustainability evaluation.
 
3- Results and Discussion
An integrated economic, social and environmental index was introduced to evaluate the alignment of agricultural projects with sustainable development. There is difference in the views of faculties and experts in the evaluation of projects. The faculties prefer the environmental component with an average weight of 0.46; the economic and social components were with an average weight of 0.30 and 0.24 in the second and third disorders. While the bank's experts prefer the economic component with an average weight of 0.50, the environmental and social components were with an average weight of 0.26, and 0.24 in the second and third priorities. The first measure of the economic index from view point of the faculties and experts was financial resources of project, with weights of 0.31 and 0.37, respectively. The second and third criteria from the view point of faculties are the value chain with a weight of 0.19 and the structure of the project with a weight of 0.15 respectively. On the contrary, the second and third criteria from the view point of bank experts were the structure of the project with a weight of 0.28 and the value chain with a weight of 0.14. Risk and relative advantage were in the next ranks from the view point of both groups, but faculties had assigned more values. Insurance had a lower importance from the view point of both groups. Social capital in the social index has the first weighting rank with a weight of 0.33 in faculties and a weight of 0.21 in agricultural banks experts, and also among faculties, employment with a weight of 0.17, education with a weight of 0.13, food security with a weight of 0.12 were in the next ranks. Among the bank experts, food security with a weight of 0.20, employment with a weight of 0.17 and education with a weight of 0.15 were in the next ranks. According to both groups, the criteria of age, migration and having a side job were of lower importance. In terms of environmental index, according to both groups, the amount of water consumed in the project had the highest coefficient of importance, which is 0.25 in the average opinions of faculties and 0.30 in bank experts. According to faculties, after water, fertilizer and pesticide consumption with 0.18, land use change with 0.15 weight, agroecological activities and farm management, and the type of cropping system with 0.12 weights had share in the environmental index. Also, agricultural experts, after water, weighted the type of cropping system with a weight of 0.18, agroecological activities and farm management with a weight of 0.17, fertilizer consumption and pesticide consumption with a weight of 0.12, land use change with a weight of 0.11. According to experts, the greenhouse banana project was the most sustainable project with a score of 0.362, followed by rose cut flower and hydroponic cucumber cultivation projects with 0.327 and 0.311, respectively. According to the faculties, the greenhouse banana project was the most sustainable project with a score of 0.360, and the projects of growing rose cut flowers and hydroponic cucumbers were in the next ranks with 0.328 and 0.312, respectively.
 
4- Conclusion
Faculties prioritize environmental issues in the evaluation of projects, while bank experts consider economic issues more important. Both groups, from the economic aspect, financial resources criteria, from the social aspect, social capital, and from the environmental aspect, water consumption were the first priority of the evaluation of agricultural sustainability. In addition, in the evaluation of the selected projects using the aggregated index of sustainability, the greenhouse banana project is in the first priority of sustainability, and the rose cut flower cultivation and the hydroponic cucumber projects were in the next ranks. Therefore, if the allocation of facilities is done in the same order and share, it will have the least negative economic, social and environmental effects.