Evaluation of agronomic, technical, economic, and environmental issues by analytic hierarchy process for rice weeding machine

Abstract

Seed is a living product that must be grown, harvested, and processed correctly in order to realize the yield potential of any rice variety. Choosing the suitable weeding machines for paddy fields is of great interest to rice farmers. This choice requires exact evaluation and identifying its criteria can be very crucial. A Fuzzy decision-making system can be designed for a weeder machine through developing fuzzy sets of criteria for selecting suitable weeder machine providing a good basis for comparison of different types of machines considering each rice farmer and paddy field. The objective of this study was to explain the evaluation criteria for rice weeding machine in paddy fields and present fuzzy sets of identified criteria of Iran. The methodology can be divided into three main parts: the examination of construct validity of instruments, prioritization, and the relationships of variables. Thus, used survey and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) methods. The tools included a researcher-made questionnaire using 5-point paired comparison statements. For the survey, the statistical population included all experts in education and research working in ministry of agriculture from which 310 peoples were selected. For AHP, 20 experts were selected by purposive sampling. The results of factor analysis showed that all criteria were strongly related. The results of AHP prioritized the criteria as agronomic, technical, economic and environmental. Considering the “agronomic” and “technical” criteria, the experts preferred engine two and three row weeder machines, while regarding “agronomic” and “environmental” criteria, hand weeder machines were preferred. Obviously, that income amount and rising costs make the user to give priority to hand machines, whereas under normal conditions, “agronomic” and “technical” criteria are considered.