An evaluation of agri-environmental indicators through a multi-criteria decision-making tool in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Turkey

Abstract

Our study investigates the historical achievements of agri-environmental and economic policies in order to ensure food security in the nations of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Various agroeconomic and environmental indicators are tested, such as per capita cereals, per capita meat production, per capita milk production, yield of cereals, gross agricultural production value, fertilizer and pesticide use efficiency, and total agricultural emissions. The study attempts to rank the countries according to sustainability criteria. In the studies of ranking, multi-criteria decision-making methods are best suited for effectively dealing with a number of multifaceted evaluation criteria. The current study employs the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method to rank the countries according to the above-mentioned criteria. Results show that Turkey was the closest to an optimal solution in 1980, while the Netherlands was farthest from an optimal solution the same year. In 2013 the country closest to an optimal solution was France. We can infer that economic indicators have some effects on ideal solutions because the Netherlands has less agricultural land, but its agri-economic value is higher than in other countries.