Abstract

Socio- Economic Sustainability Analysis of Saffron Production and its Impact on Rural Development: A Case in Bala Welayat County in Torbat Heydariey Township   Abstract             There is no doubt that sustainable agriculture is one of foundations of sustainable development. The main source of income for villagers in Torbat-e-heydariye city and its Balavelayat vill are farm and garden products and saffron which has been cultivated in Khorasan from ancient times is one of predominant products in this region so it is important to pay attention to its sustainability with regard to rural development. This paper aimed at analyzing saffron production sustainability with regard to social and economic dimensions. We used documentary and field study methods and descriptive-analytical research method for this study. We prepared two kinds of questionnaires in field operation process. The first questionnaire was filled by Dehyars and government officials in this region and 2^nd questionnaire was filled by 327 saffron farmers who were sampled from 20 villages in interested area. SPSS and Excel softwares and deductive and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Result show that economic condition of villages which includes low income rate, saffron cost fluctuation, lack of price guaranty, lack of proper marketing, high costs of saffron production and public organization insufficiency in establishing cooperative corporations for facilitation of saffron trade play role in saffron economic unsustainability. On the other hand villagers' volunteer participation in rural issues and saffron production has direct relationship with rural social sustainability but there isn’t any meaningful relationship between people participation, integrity and cooperation and economic sustainability. Keywords: sustainability, sustainable agriculture, saffron, rural development