Evaluation of agricultural development potential in Lika-Senj County using multicriteria ranking

The aim of this paper is to compare the availability and use of agricultural development resources and, consequently, evaluate the perspectives of agriculture in the Local Administrative Units (LAUs) of Lika-Senj County. The preconditions of agricultural development in cities (Gospić, Senj) and municipalities (Udbina, Plitvička jezera) were valued by combination of SWOT analysis and AHP multicriteria method. An expert team of eight economic development stakeholders from Lika-Senj County evaluated SWOT elements using Saaty scale as a part of AHP methodology. The role of the experts was to determine the extent to which SWOT elements are relevant to the analyzed cities and municipalities. The LAU with the most prominent Strenghts for further agricultural development was town of Gospić while the Weaknesses were the most pronounced in the LAU of Senj. The largest development Opportunities are present in Udbina municipality, while the Plitvice Lakes is the unit with the most prominent Threats. In the overall SWOT-AHP assessment of the four LAUs that includes all elements of the SWOT table, Udbina municipality was rated the most promising for the development of agriculture and related activities, followed by the town of Gospić and the municipality of Plitvice Lakes. SWOT-AHP has been proved as a successful and practical method of ranking LAUs that combines quantitative and qualitative evaluation criteria