Assessing the agricultural sustainability of conventional farming systems in Samsun province of Turkey

The objective of this study was to evaluate the sustainability of the agricultural activities in Samsun province. Research data belongs to 2004-2005 production period and was gathered from randomly selected 93 farms by means of questionnaire. In this research, economical, social, bio-physical and environmental sustainability of agricultural activities were investigated. Total sustainability index, based on the selected 40 sustainability indicators was used to determine sustainability level. Research results revealed that some serious problems in the aspect of agricultural sustainability arise in the research area. The basic problem is that of economic viability of farms in first and second sub regions, while for third region, it is social sustainability. The most deficient social factors in the research area are insufficient sewerage systems, inadequate health service and problematic land ownership issues. The most important economic barrier is the low level of return on asset. Unconscious and excessive chemical input use, insufficient irrigation water and water erosion were the most important environmental and bio-physical barriers for agricultural sustainability. Increasing farm level productivity and controlling production costs and investment to the farm sector might enhance the sustainability of agricultural activities in the area. These farm level measures must be adopted by related government agencies and especially infrastructural and land ownership problems should be tackled as soon as possible.