Determining Alternative Crops with Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods within the Framework of Land Risk Criteria

Abstract

Natural, societal, and economic hazards have a negative impact on agricultural production. In the field of agriculture, productivity studies are common, but election studies are rare. The goal of the study was to figure out which product to plant based on the region’s characteristics by anticipating risk factors in advance. The most appropriate crop kind to grow based on the risk variables faced in agricultural production was explored in this study. The nine risk factors in the Çukurova region, as well as three alternative crops, were determined for this study. Input costs, changes in climatic conditions, changes in yield loss due to pests, agricultural tools and machinery failure, theft, fire, crop damage due to excessive water, crop loss due to drought and lack of technical information were chosen as criteria. Citrus, cereal, and legume were chosen as alternative crops. First, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the weights of the score were determined. As a consequence of the weighing, the input costs criterion had the greatest weight value of 0.29. The criterion with the lowest score was a lack of technical information (0.01). Then, using the steps of the Elimination and Choice Translating Reality English method, which is one of the Multi Criteria Decision Making methods, the best relevant alternative ranking was determined. The comparison was also done using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solutions method. The cereal alternative was the best in both methodologies as a result of their application. In the first method, legumes and citrus were chosen, however in the second method, the opposite outcome was obtained.