Assessing the performance of commercial farms in England and Wales: Lessons for supporting the sustainable intensification of agriculture

Abstract

Understanding the trade‐offs between yield, ecosystem services, and other societal benefits is a fundamental prerequisite for the sustainable intensification of agriculture. Here, we develop and test an holistic approach to assessing farm performance across production, social, financial, and environmental dimensions. A longlist of potential indicators was reduced to a smaller subset of Headline Indicators, covering financial performance, levels of food production (standardized in terms of energy content), social characteristics of the farmer (including age, level of education, and degree of business cooperation), hours worked on the farm and provision of public access, and environmental quality (including impacts on climate regulation and water quality). A new index for biodiversity was created and validated, based on land use and management. Data were collected from 59 English and Welsh farms, using a questionnaire structured to be similar to the UK Farm Business Survey. Data were analyzed per farm and per unit area. The main overall variation in Headline Indicators was due to positive relationships between production, profitability and predicted levels of nitrate and GHG emissions, while social variables and biodiversity were generally unrelated to production. Cereal production was associated with relatively low levels of GHG emissions per unit of food production. There were strong differences in indicator profiles between farm types. Such metrics have value in helping understand how best to drive sustainable intensification, especially as it should involve reducing the pollution footprint of food production.

An Analysis of Global Research Trends on Greenhouse Technology: Towards a Sustainable Agriculture

“…Under this new term it is understood that the main objective to be pursued is the increase of food supply with lower (or without) pressure on the natural environment [30]. The sustainable intensification of agriculture allows meeting the objective of increasing food production and the one of achieving a sustainable development [31]. Tilman et al [32] estimate that food demand in 2050 will increase 100-110% in the 2005-2050 period, according to the caloric content of crops.…”

Reframing the Debate Surrounding the Yield Gap between Organic and Conventional Farming

“…Recent metrics that were developed for sustainable intensification are particularly useful when they go beyond the original efficiency-focused framework and emphasize various aspects of sustainability. Other useful frameworks include measuring environmental impacts on a yield-scaled basis [70] and assorted "eco-efficiency metrics" [71] that integrate multiple criteria that are related to sustainability and productivity [72,73]. However, the strengthening of this debate must continue.…”

Towards the sustainable intensification of agriculture—a systems approach to policy formulation

“…The perception of performance can depend greatly upon how the data are scaled. For example, in a recent survey in the UK, performance was given per unit farm area [11] , giving a very different impression compared with scaling per unit product. Care is also needed to interpret correctly differences between farming systems as well as the social and biophysical context.…”

“…Agriculture is expected to deliver a range of ecosystem services and other societal benefits. These outcomes can be grouped into domains, which comprise productivity, social, human, economic and environmental [10,11] . At the farm level, the goals represent those aspects of the production system that are meaningful to the farm and its major stakeholders.…”