Rice is an important crop throughout the world, being main food of over half of the world population (Park et al., 2014). In Iran, it is the second most important strategic crop after wheat, with a special role in people’s food regime. However, continuous rice planting in the area without care for sound use of resources has adversely affected the environment in the recent years. High fertilization rates, particularly nitrogen, and the icreased possiblity of pollution of waters resources, particularly of ground waters, threaten the health of people and other organisms, especially of the aquatic organisms (Khalili et al., 2009). Moreover, the extensive use of chemical pesticides has also entailed serious problems, such as resistant pests, destruction of non-target species, and impairment of the ecosytem equilibrium. Consecutive soil tillage indirectly resulted in rapid decomposition of organic matter and the loss of soil humus (Daryaei et al., 2014). On the other hand, the lack of sound policy-making in the area negatively affects rice production and growers, resulting in loss of rice production, land use change of rice farms, farmers’ discontent, and the loss of motivation to continue production (Azizi, 2006).
Competing demands have been placed on agriculture in recent years, namely the need to further increase food production to feed a growing world population while greatly reducing its environmental footprint. To help achieve these goals, calls for sustainable