Hossein Azadi
| Hossein Azadi is a post-doc researcher at the Department of Geography, University of Gent, Belgium. He holds a PhD in “sustainable rangeland management” and is familiar with decision support systems and spatial modeling. His main works have focused on integrated studies on “Food & Land” policies aiming at understanding the mutual impacts of different farming systems and land use change/development. Email:hossein.azadi@ugent.be |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Agricultural Land Conversion in Northeast Iran: Understanding the Consequences of Land Use Policies
Agricultural land conversion (ALC) is a phenomenon that is almost unavoidable during economic development and population growth periods. However, uncontrolled land conversion has great impacts on environment in general, and agricultural products in particular. High population density, rapid economic growth, urban sprawl and transportation are believed as the main drivers of ALC. Among all, urbanization patterns and transportation have increasingly led to high pressure on urban fringe areas. This urban expansion encroaches on fertile agricultural lands. Infrastructure development, such as road construction for transportation also contributes significantly to ALC in most countries, especially in developing countries like Iran where the urban sprawl and transportation are in rise. Using a multi-stakeholder analysis and mixed-method approach, this study aims to understand “why”, “when”, “where”, “to whom” and “how” ALC is taking place in Northeast Iran and “what” are the main farmers’ coping strategies toward ALC.
