Strategic sustainability practices in intercropping-based family farming systems: study on rural communities of Iran

This paper reports a realistic analysis of a region using Grounded Theory (GT) to provide a sustainable model for family farming systems based on the intercropping system in rural communities of Iran. Furthermore, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) was applied to assign weights to the criteria and sub-criteria of intercropping and monocropping systems. According to the model, the main phenomenon was “sustainability in the family farming system based on intercropping”. In this model, the causal factors were found to include behavioral and attitudinal motivators. Micro- and macro-factors were identified as the interfering factors in family farming systems based on intercropping. Social factors, economic components, and environmental potentials were the contextual factors of this system. Finally, the consequences included the conceptual development and evolution of sustainability, socioeconomic transformation, and ecological-environmental transformation. The results of FAHP showed that the environmental criterion was ranked the first among all criteria underpinning the sustainability of the intercropping system.