Analysis of Ethical Considerations in Agricultural Activities in Sonqur County of Iran Using Fuzzy Logic

Environmental crises, degradation of natural resources and reduction of social, economic and environmental capital in the fields of agriculture and natural resources show that man in the face of nature, has gone beyond the limits of morality. This study aimed to analyze ethical considerations among farmers in Sonqur County of Kermanshah province in Iran using the theory of fuzzy logic. The statistical population of the study consisted of farmers in eight sub-districts of the county (N=18917); and among them, based on Morgan's sampling table, 375 farmers were selected as the sample in a two-stage cluster sampling method. The fuzzy logic method and MATLAB software were used to classify the sub-districts in terms of ethicality. The study findings showed that in the field of environmental ethics, all of the farmers of the studied sub-districts with the high degree of membership were at the low ethical level; and in terms of agricultural ethics, Abbarik (33.8) and Satar (37.9) sub-districts with high degree of membership were at the moderate ethical level and other sub-districts with various degrees of membership were placed at low level; and overall, in terms of environmental-agricultural ethics, Satar (43.5), Abbarik (38.8), Gaverood (33.6), Bavaleh (32.5) and Agahan (32.3) sub-districts, respectively, were ranked in the first to fifth positions and with high membership degree were placed at the moderate level and other sub-districts with high membership degree were placed at the low level of ethicality. Accordingly, the study findings and the proved possibility of applying the fuzzy logic in the field of agricultural ethics suggested that the decisions made on the basis of this model could be included in the agenda of managers and planners of agricultural development; in this regard, some suggestions were provided by this study.