Participatory multicriteria assessment of maize cropping systems in the context of family farmers in the Brazilian Cerrado

Abstract

Conservation agriculture (CA) is recognized as a promising crop management strategy for sustainable agricultural intensification. The objective of this study was to evaluate CA cropping systems for rainfed maize as an alternative to the traditional tillage-based cropping systems (CT) in the context of family farms, using a multi-criteria model that represents the point of view of farmers. Farmers considered several aspects for evaluating the cropping systems, thatwere systematized in the model through five criteria (with sub-criteria): (a) costs; (b) yield; (c) labour; (d) human health and environment; and (e) production risks. CA did not differ from CT for the 'costs' criterion but was superior for the 'yield' and 'labour' criteria. In contrast, CT obtained better ratings for the criteria 'human health and environment' and 'production risks'. Considering all criteria, CA was better appraised than CT. However, a new local policy measure that subsidizes the hiring of mechanized tillage services overturns this outcome, indicating the importance of exogenous factors. Overall, the participatory processes in building the model allowed us to better understand the reasons of adoption or non-adoption of CA by small-scale farmers in the tropics.

Participatory Analysis of Impacts of Agricultural Production Systems in a Watershed Depicting Southern Brazilian Agriculture

“…(ii) Frame mode of the decision-making context [41] to decompose the cognitive map into clusters with similar evaluation themes. After defining and organizing them hierarchically, the evaluation axes and each FPV was transformed into a criterion through an attribute (measurement scale) and a value function associated with this attribute [42], which enables measuring, in the least ambiguous manner possible, the performance of the available alternatives for each axis [32]. Complex FPVs were subdivided into two or more Elementary Viewpoints (EPVs), each generating a sub-criterion as well.…”

Identify Lao farmers' goals and their ranking using best–worst scaling experiment and scale‐adjusted latent class models

“…Second, studies mainly use consensual views of stakeholder groups but do not take into account the diversity of preferences among farmers (e.g. Iocola et al, 2021; Xavier et al, 2020). Since ex‐ante assessment of technologies can rely on farm models of representative farmers, we are looking for a typology of farmers based on the respective weights for the different goals.…”