The Sustainability Assessment of Plantation Agriculture - A Systematic Review of Sustainability Indicators

Abstract

The unsustainable growth of the plantation agricultural sector has caused numerous sustainability challenges including environmental, economic, social and governance concerns. Although a wide variety of sustainability indicators have been developed to monitor and assess the sustainability issues for agriculture in general, few, if any have been developed specifically for plantation agriculture. In response to this, we conducted a systematic review of the literature in order to identify the most commonly used or suggested indicators of sustainability in plantation agriculture and to identify the critical issues in the development of a comprehensive and unambiguous set of sustainability indicators for plantation agriculture. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) method in our systematic review. Following the screening of a large number of articles identified through database searches, 40 articles were finally selected and analysed in this study. The results of the analysis (i.e. indicators) were organized according to the sustainability indicator framework developed by the United Nations Commissions on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). A total of 47 commonly used or suggested indicators relevant for assessing the sustainability of plantation agricultural systems, along with the potential issues in their application were identified. Although it was possible to identify relevant indicators, it was difficult to conclusively identify a universal set of indicators to assess the sustainability of different plantation agricultural systems. We conclude that although 2 developing a suite of sustainability indicators that cover the environmental, social, economic and governance dimensions can add value to agricultural plantations, there is a need to develop sustainability indicators via a bottom up and participatory approach to select a suite of sustainability indicators for plantation agriculture that are not only relevant but can be acceptable to a wide range of stakeholder groups.

Integrated-Smart Agriculture: Contexts and Assumptions for a Broader Concept

“…To better organise the literature review, namely in terms of sub-topics, the PRISMA approach was complement with a preliminary bibliometric analysis, following, for example, Martinho [29] for food marketing, or Nadaraja et al [30] for sustainable agriculture, or Martinho for agri-food contexts [31]. The bibliometric analysis was performed with bibliographic data (full counting and 1 as the minimum number of occurrences of a keyword), considering co-occurrence as links and keywords as items, following the procedures of the VOSviewer [32,33] software.…”

Analysis on the Temporal and Spatial Features of the Coupling and Coordination of Industrialization and Agricultural Green Development in China during 1990–2019

“…Luis (2021) discusses sustainable development goals and indexes [28]. Nadaraia (2021) identified 47 indexes that can be used to assess the sustainability of plantation agricultural systems [29]. Wang et al (2021) analyzed the sustainable development of agriculture from the three dimensions of environment, society and economy, identified the main factors affecting the sustainable development of agriculture, and proposed improvement measures and management suggestions to reduce obstacles to sustainable agricultural development and improve Sustainable Agriculture Practice [22].…”

“…The recycling rate of mulch film is low [43], so the intensity of use is used. This paper selects eight indexes to evaluate the level of AGD: the per capita disposable income of rural residents [34,40], the level of agricultural mechanization [39,40,44] and the rate of land output [29,45], the level of farmland being irrigated [39,44], the intensity of fertilizer used [29,44], the intensity of pesticides used [29], the intensity of the used agricultural film [46], the proportion of disaster area [34]. The evaluation index system is shown in Table 1.…”

“…The per capita disposable income of rural residents Ten thousand yuan/person + [34,40] The level of agricultural mechanization Total power of agricultural machinery/crop sown area W/ha + [39,40,44] The rate of land output Total agricultural output value/sown area of crops Yuan/ha + [29,45] The level of farmland being irrigated Effective irrigation area/arable land area % + [39,44] The intensity of fertilizer used Total fertilizer input/total sown area Kg/ha − [29,44] The intensity of pesticides used Total pesticide input/total sown area Kg/ha − [29] The intensity of the used agricultural film Total agricultural film input/total sown area Kg/ha − [46] The proportion of disaster area Infested area of disaster-stricken area % − [34] 3.3. Analytical Method…”

Mensuração da sustentabilidade na bovinocultura de corte: desafios para o consumo e produção responsáveis da Agenda 2030

“…Neste sentido, a aplicabilidade dos indicadores de sustentabilidade reportam, de forma operacional, o desempenho de um determinado sistema (Barry & Hoyne, 2021). Assim, por meio da aplicabilidade desses indicadores, é possível considerar os atributos específicos de determinado sistema, sendo relevantes para a preservação do bem-estar humano, ambiental e econômico (Nadaraja et al, 2021).…”