**Author details**

vation of crop rotation reduced to 3.1% and reduction of soil erosion in fruit and wine growing

48 Applications and Theory of Analytic Hierarchy Process - Decision Making for Strategic Decisions

By changing the weight and priority of the objective: improve the rural areas to prevent marginalisation to 49.0%, the ranking of the measures still stayed the same. Organic fruit and vine production, organic horticulture kept their leading position as most important measures, followed by organic crop production with 4.8%; integrated crop, fruit, vine production and integrated horticulture kept their weights of 3.7%. Bird conservation in humid extensive meadows of Natura 2000 sites, permanent green cover in water protection areas and on fallow land, greening of arable land and preservation of crop rotation each got a weight of 3.4%,

By changing the weight and priority of the objective: production and economic consequences to 49.0%, the there was no significant change in the weights of the measures compared to Figure 6. Organic fruit and vine production, organic horticulture kept their leading position as most important measures with weights of 6.4% each, followed by organic crop production with 5.2%; integrated crop, fruit, vine production and integrated horticulture kept their weights of 3.6% each. Bird conservation in humid extensive meadows of Natura 2000 sites, permanent green cover in water protection areas and on fallow land show weights of 3.4% each, greening of arable land 3.5%, the preservation of crop rotation each 3.4% and reduction of soil erosion

However, the organic fruit production is seen as the most important agri-environmental measure is specific for Slovenia because of its geographical features. Vrišer [56] states that in the census of the agricultural sector made in 2000, the proportion of Slovenia's total surface area of plains and low hills amounts to 36.4%, on which 54.5% of the utilised agricultural area is found, whereas on the karst regions that occupy about 25.3% of the total surface area, there is only 17.5% of utilised agricultural area, and in the high mountains (10.8%), only 3.5%. Vrišer also noted that 2.6% of the agricultural area was used for fruit production. In 2006, Sušnik et al. [57] still noted that fruit is grown on 2–3% of all agricultural land in Slovenia. This shows

Despite limitations (particularly in the field of data acquisition), we found that the approach full field our expectations in the field of AEM assessment. The methodology results in precise AEM ranking with respect to defined criteria priorities. Furthermore, the group approach and priorities aggregation enable inclusion of the large number of experts relevant for the analysis.

The attempt in this paper was to show how AHP can successfully be employed in agriculture by assessing the role of agri-environmental measures to improve agriculture and the coun‐ tryside. The goal, criteria and their attributes were compiled by the government of Slovenia. Arranging them in a hierarchy helped to analyse their interactions within the hierarchy and with respect to the main goal. The correct implementation of the necessary steps in AHP results

reduction of soil erosion in fruit and wine growing 3.1%.

in fruit and wine growing 3.1%.

no increase in the fruit-growing area.

**4. Conclusion**

to 2.6%.

Monica Huehner, Črtomir Rozman and Karmen Pažek\*

\*Address all correspondence to: karmen.pazek@um.si

Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, University of Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
