Evaluation of sustainability of conventional agroecosystems and introduction of ecological farming systems in Zagros region, Iran: A necessity towards sustainable rural development

Urban development is inconceivable without rural development. In sustainable rural development, agroecosystems are considered as self-sufficient systems, which should imitate and follow laws’ of nature. Quite the contrary, deforestation, overgrazing, conversion of rangelands to dryland farming and conventional managements of irrigated farmlands, such as monoculture, heavy tillage, unsound use of chemicals and fertilizers, are widespread and humanity and environment are suffering from them. Now, the only thing that prevents new villagers of Kurdistan to accept and practice these unsound managements is knowledge. First, to understand concretely the consequences that conventional managements have on the quality and health of their lands and cro second, to have a sufficient knowledge about the alternative, sustainable agricultural practices. Accordingly, the main goal of this study is to increase this twin awareness in Koya region. This will be done firstly trough, the evaluation and comparison of sustainability of current agroecosystems via a soil quality approach, and secondly, by introducing sustainable agroforestry systems via characterization of the existing practices in the study area, and by referring to the agroforestry systems which previously characterized in Zagros region of Iran. Thus, the objectives of this study are four folded: 1- Characterizing and registering the situation of conventional agricultural practices and costumes of Koya region. In this stage, all aspects of current agricultural managements, land ownership, technology and labor level, yield, etc. are studied and registered for major farmlands. Then, a preliminary classification of conventional management systems is established. According to this classification, a few important agroecosystems are selected for the second stage; 2- Assessing soil health state in conventional agroecosystems of the region and determining the relative sustainability of the studied systems. In this stage, biological, chemical and physical indicators of soil quality are evaluated. In addition, in order to have a sufficient knowledge about the inherent soil quality of selected farms, routine soil profile description and analysis will be performed; 3- Characterizing traditional ecological farming systems, including agroforestry and silvopastural systems, to design and extend sustainable agriculture. Important agroforestry systems will be found in the region, and their properties will be characterized. Three sources of data will be considered: registered criteria of the system, interviews with land users and primary ecological data. Then it will be necessary to classify the systems. Four classification bases may be employed for classification of the diagnosed systems; first based on “the nature of components”, then “ecological properties”, “applied technology” and finally “socio-economic criteria”. This stage is conducted parallel to the first stage; and 4- Introduction of ecological and sustainable farming systems based on stages 1 to 3, as well as on similar experiences obtained from case studies in Iran.