Comparison of Spatial-Temporal Deviations of Agricultural Crops Produced in Provinces of Iran Based on the Official Optimum Cultivation Pattern

The aim of this research is the development of spatio-temporal maps of the value of agricultural crops (in five groups named cereals, legumes, industrial crops, vegetables, and fodder crops) produced in provinces of Iran using the tmap package of the RStudio software. The raw data used in this study was obtained from statistical tables presented by the statistic center of ministry of Agriculture Jihad about the value of different agronomy crops produced in 31 provinces in the time period 2016-2020. Furthermore, in this study a statistical method was developed to compare provinces based on the spatio-temporal deviations of agricultural crops produced from Iran’s official cultivation pattern. According to the results of this study, large deviations were recorded for Gilan, Alborz, and Yazd provinces followed by Bushehr, Tehran, and Qom provinces. Numerically, average deviations for the three leading provinces were 72.5%, 72%, and 70.95%, respectively. Furthermore, the average absolute deviations of crop yields in the cereals and vegetables categories from the official crop pattern were 5.9%, and 11.7% respectively; while similar measures for the legumes, fodder, and industrial crop categories were 30.2%, 36%, and 41.2% respectively. Finally from the practical vantage point, if the clustering curve contains clusters having central symmetry, by exchanging the cultivation patterns of these clusters, the yields of agronomy crops will be change in the direction of matching with the suggestions of the official cultivation pattern.