In a majority of agricultural economics analyses, farmers’ economic welfare is highlighted while the environmental issues are largely ignored. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine the optimal cropping pattern through an environmental approach in a case study in Kazeroun County, Fars, Iran. Data was collected from production costs statistics provided by the Statistics and Information Technology Bureau of Agriculture-Jahad Organization. The optimal cropping pattern was determined through the goal programming model with four goals of maximizing farmers’ net return, minimizing the amount of used water, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides under three scenarios. The results indicated that the third scenario which involved the environmental goals specified by the Islamic Republic of Iran’ s 5th Development Plan, was the optimal one. In this scenario, the use of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides decreased by 4. 4%, 4. 72%, and 8. 33% respectively while the net return increased by 10%. According to the results of the study, it is possible to increase the profit and productivity of resources with regard to environmental issues.

Environmental sustainability is one of the most important considerations in planning and managing agriculture in any country nowadays. Agriculture plays an important role in Afghanistan's economy and employment. Herat province is rich in agricultural production in Afghanistan. To achieve environmental sustainability along with profitability, the present research aimed to develop an optimal cropping pattern for Afghanistan with environmental considerations. The crops studied include wheat, barley, sesame, cumin, and saffron, which accounted for more than 70 percent of the cropping area in Herat province. The goal and linear programming model were used to determine the optimal cropping pattern. The goals of reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides along with maximizing gross margins were used in the goal model with the aim of achieving environmental sustainability. The results of the linear model, aimed at maximizing gross margins, showed that in the optimal pattern of the region, the cultivated area of sesame, barley, and saffron should be increased and the cultivated area of wheat and cumin should be decreased versus the status quo. In addition, the results of goal models in different scenarios showed significant changes in comparison to the current cropping pattern.

In this study environmental and farmer's objectives of Marvdasht district growers were considered jointly using multi objective programming. Different amounts were chosen for each objective and several plans were developed. Based on the results, it was revealed that, there was a trade off among objectives and a better combination of objectives is available, compare to current plan. It was also found that some patterns may be able to improve environmental objectives. Barley and tomato were recognized pioneer crops in that they may provide desirable combination of objectives, followed by wheat and rice. 

Sustainability in agriculture is determined by such aspects aseconomic, social, and environment. The multi-objectiveprogramming (MOP) model has been a widely used tool forstudying and analyzing the sustainability of agricultural systems; however, optimization models, in most applications, have touse data that are uncertain. Recently, robust optimization hasbeen used as an optimization model that incorporates uncertainty. This paper develops a framework for environmental-economicdecision-making that considers the environmental and economicsustainability criteria in determining an optimal allocation ofagricultural areas that cover an irrigation network under uncertaindata. The primary uncertain parameter of the robust model wasthe quantity of available water for each season. The applicationof the proposed model to the case study of the right fringe ofthe Nekooabad irrigation network in the province of Isfahan, Iran demonstrates the reliability and flexibility of the model. The results show that the optimal total gross margin decreaseswith higher robustness levels. To compensate for the loss ofgross margin of farmers in the robust pattern, efficiency enhancementpolicies were emphasized.

Optimal using of soil and water resources leads to their conservation and farmer's income growth. This study aims to determine the optimal cropping pattern in the farms of east rural region of Isfahan. Several goals such as maximizing cultivated area, net returns, employment, and also conservation and sustainability of the water resources were considered simultaneously. After gathering of needed data from several resources and interviewing with experts and processing them, a mathematical model was formulated by using multi criteria goal programming (GP) technique and solved by LINDO software for the study area. Based on the results, rice, sugar beet and alfalfa were eliminated from the cropping pattern and the cultivated areas of potatoes and corn were increased. Wheat, barley and silage maize have had almost the same area in both existing and optimum cropping patterns and the area of onion has been reduced. In addition, there was an increase in net returns by26.2 and 38.2 percent, employment by 15.1 and 2.2 percent and also decreasing of water consumption by 10.7 and 9.7 percent respectively in the north and south Baraan rural regions. Therefore, advising farmers to adopt such techniques could be beneficial to them and the region.