Determining the Suitable Areas of Light Livestock Breeding Activity With an Experimental Approach (Case Study: Razavi Khorasan Province)

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Researcher of Tourism Research Institute, Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Mashhad, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,Iran

Abstract

The purpose of determining suitable activity territories is that each territory, according to its merits and advantages and within the framework of macro-territorial policies, plays a specialized role in several fields of economic activities and interacts with other regions based on that. Therefore, in this study, it has been tried to use three groups of indicators, including climate (rainfall and percentage of evaporation and transpiration to total annual precipitation), water (renewable water status per capita) and livestock-pasture (the ratio of existing livestock to permitted livestock and capacity Pasture ecology) to determine suitable areas for pasture and light livestock breeding in Razavi Khorasan. For this purpose, their data for 33 cities of the province were prepared and prioritized with the help of one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods, i.e. Fuzzy TOPSIS, and then based on that, the suitable territories for the development of light livestock activities were determined by the cities. In terms of the type of goal, the current research is among applied researches and in terms of the type of method, it is classified as descriptive-survey research.  The studied statistical population included 20 experts in the fields of agriculture, grazing and light livestock breeding in Razavi Khorasan province in 1401. The results of the study showed that the cities of Chenaran, Khoshab, Torbat Heydarieh, Saleh Abad, Kohsorkh, Sarkhs and Qochan are suitable areas for the continuation of light livestock breeding in the province. Therefore, in order to continue this activity in the coming years, although it is a necessary condition to reduce the number of livestock within the permissible limits and to carry out grazing projects to improve and strengthen the pastures, taking into account the water that can be programmed for agriculture, but the sufficient condition is to reduce the dependence of livestock on pastures. It happens only through breeding and moving from traditional animal husbandry to industrial animal husbandry. As a result, even though the cost of maintaining light livestock in an industrial way is high, but the condition of the pastures, water and climate of the province makes the ranchers inevitably move towards industrial livestock farming.

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Main Subjects

References

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Geography and Territorial Spatial Arrangement
Volume 15, Issue 56
October 2025
Pages 1-28

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History

  • Receive Date: 26 August 2024
  • Revise Date: 18 February 2025
  • Accept Date: 12 May 2025

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