The Economic-Environmental Assessment of the Factors Influencing Input Prices in Sistan and Baluchestan Province: An Emphasis on Agricultural Sustainability Indices

The agricultural sector is of crucial importance in Iran, especially in the Sistan region due to its role in foreign exchange generation and the regional economy. In this regard, input prices and the underpinning factors can significantly contribute to the sustainability of agricultural indices under various economic and environmental criteria. Sistan-va-Baluchistan province is one of the provinces with a high potential for agricultural production. It is the leading producer of most crops, including horticultural crops. Given the important economic role of this sector in this province, this research aimed to conduct an economic and environmental assessment of the factors influencing input prices with an emphasis on agricultural sustainability indices in Sistan va-Baluchistan province. Accordingly, the advanced gray technique (GRA) was applied for modeling under multi-attribute decision-making conditions for which 50 questionnaires were administered to farmers and experts separately. The results obtained from the experts showed that alternative 1 (total costs of the production factors) was ranked first with a score of 1 in terms of the gray relational rank. Alternative 2 (crop price fluctuations) was ranked second with a gray relational rank of 0.887. The final scores for gray relational ranks from the farmers’ perspective put “guaranteed purchase of crops” in the first rank with a gray relational rank score of 1.