Measuring agricultural sustainability at the farm-level: A pragmatic approach

Abstract

With increasing political pressure to produce more food whilst being environmentally and socially considerate, alongside the need to cope with climatic extremes and financial instability, farming needs to become more sustainable. To monitor and improve understanding of sustainable agriculture, farmers will need additional tools to illustrate the impacts of their business decisions. However, current tools to monitor the sustainability of agriculture require measurement of variables that are rarely readily available. Moreover these tools exclude farmers in their development and interpretation. This paper suggests a pragmatic approach to creating a farm-based monitoring tool. We propose that farm-level indices of sustainability are initially based only on data that is readily available. Whilst this would increase its appeal to farmers and therefore participation rates, it may initially have little immediate value as a measure of sustainability. Therefore a 'design-action-design' cycle-the basis of adaptive co-management-must be employed to allow the tool to evolve. Starting from this pragmatic, bottom-up perspective, as data collection systems improve, more theoretically driven (i.e. top-down) site-specific variables of sustainability can be included to provide a more comprehensive tool. This paper illustrates the principles involved by (i) calculating a farm-specific composite sustainability index (CSI) for a commercial farm based on readily available data and (ii) emphasising the need to establish better data collection systems.

Measurement of sustainability in agriculture: a review of indicators

“…This calls for a new category of indicators which measures the effi ciency of production in relation to both inputs and environmental impact. In recent years there has been a concerted effort to monitor progress towards sustainable intensifi cation (see, for example, Frater and Franks, 2013;Barnes and Thomson, 2014).…”

Sustainability Assessment of Smallholder Farms in the Savannah Transition Agro-Ecological Zone of Ghana

“…The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines sustainable agriculture as "development that meets the needs of current generations without threatening the future generations' ability to meet their needs and aspirations" [6]. However, according to Frater and Franks (2013) [7], sustainable development distributes natural resources spatially and temporally.…”

Assessment of Agricultural Sustainability in Sarikum Lake Basin, Sinop Province, Turkey

“…The most common method used in the evaluation of sustainability is the index method. When the studies carried out to date were examined, it was observed that studies were carried out not only at the farm level (Gameda et al 1997;Rigby et al 2001; Van der Werf & Petit 2001;Frater & Franks 2013;Moore et al 2014;Ryan et al 2014;Waney et al 2014), but also at regional, national and global levels (Trisorio 2004;Gomez Limon Jose & Riesgo 2008;Ceyhan 2010;Vecchione 2010).…”