Comparison of Support-promotional services and ethics of farmers factors toward the producing organic products in northwest of Iran

Iran has great potential to enhance organic agriculture and the production of nutritious crops. However, some obstacles, including environmental problems, poverty of farmers, inadequate agricultural education, and insufficient government support have led us to identify and prioritize appropriate criteria for producing healthy crops in the northwest of Iran. This purpose was examined in three levels of main criteria, primary sub-criteria, and secondary sub-criteria. “The support-promotional services” was the first criterion containing four primary sub-criteria and 15 secondary sub-criteria, and “The knowledge and ethics of farmers” was the second one consisting of five primary and 17 secondary sub-criteria. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was used to prioritize criteria and primary sub-criteria levels. The Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method was used to rank the secondary sub-criteria. Data were collected using the questionnaire data collection method by a panel of 22 experts. The AHP results revealed that “the support-promotional services” had the highest rank with a final weight of 0.829 and “the government support-promotional service” primary sub-criteria ranked first with a final weight of 0.614. According to the results of the SAW technique, the “Controlling, inspecting, and certifying the commercialized seed system” ranked first (final weight = 11.896) among the secondary sub-criteria, and “Making plans to supply high-quality and certified native seeds by cooperatives and lending loans for seed procurement” took the second position with a final weight of 11.896. Therefore, the priorities consisted of the effective factors in the production of healthy seed in both criteria. These results indicated that organic products will be produced with appropriate management, developing the applicable guidelines for healthy seed production, and collaborative cooperation between managers and farmers. Consequently, we suggest that appropriate policies should be adopted regarding the production of certified seeds, and farmers should be encouraged to use healthy seeds for organic production in the promotion programs of the government. Graphical Abstract