3. Methodologies for assessing sustainability in agricultural systems

The methodological problems imposed by the temporal nature of sustainability have hindered the development of approaches for its characterizing. Sustainability involves future outcomes that cannot be observed in the time frame required for intervention [35, 36].

Environmental sustainability is the maintenance of natural resources. These can be expressed as environmental objectives: water, soil, and air quality and maintenance of biodiversity. At the farm level, an agricultural system is sustainable if it conserves the natural resources provided by its ecosystem [10, 37, 38].

In order to maintain the production, it would be useful to follow a method to evaluate the degree of approximation between different systems and identify aspects to improve on each farm. This method should be broad and multidimensional [39, 40] and should address the management of animals, soils and vegetation, as well as environmental, economic, and social aspects. They should be expressed through indicators so as to compare different farms in a region or country and analyze the evolution over time [41].

Spohn [42] identifies two main approaches for sustainability assessment:


There have been developed a large number of sustainability assessment tools to gain insight into the sustainability performance of farms. These tools generally integrate a wide range of subjects and indicators to develop a holistic view on farm-level sustainability and are used for different purposes, such as monitoring, certification, consumer information, farm advice, and research [43–46]. Moreover, after a sustainability assessment, additional efforts are needed to discuss the assessment outcomes with farmers and other stakeholders and translate these into meaningful decisions for change [43, 44, 47].

Creating a tool requires collaboration between researchers and farmers; input from farmers needs to be accepted as being complementary to traditional scientific knowledge [48]. Sustainability indicators are often developed by scientists, expressed in technical language. It is commonly accepted that if the stakeholders, who will ultimately benefit from indicators, are involved in indicator conceptualization and development, then it is far more likely that they would use and appreciate the results [49, 50]. One of the main roles of indicators is communication with stakeholders. Hence, several authors [48, 51] agree that the participation and consultation of farmers is a key element in building and developing indicators. However, different types of stakeholders can interpret indicators differently, due to different values, interests, or cultural and academic context. Most of the literature on stakeholder participation associated with sustainability indicators focus on participation in the design and development of indicator systems or in data collection for indicator calculation [52]. According to Jackson et al. [53], a useful indicator must produce results that are clearly understood and accepted by scientists, policy makers, and general public [54].

Sustainable land use management is necessary to shorten the gap between planning practice

The methodological problems imposed by the temporal nature of sustainability have hindered the development of approaches for its characterizing. Sustainability involves future outcomes

Environmental sustainability is the maintenance of natural resources. These can be expressed as environmental objectives: water, soil, and air quality and maintenance of biodiversity. At the farm level, an agricultural system is sustainable if it conserves the natural resources provided

In order to maintain the production, it would be useful to follow a method to evaluate the degree of approximation between different systems and identify aspects to improve on each farm. This method should be broad and multidimensional [39, 40] and should address the management of animals, soils and vegetation, as well as environmental, economic, and social aspects. They should be expressed through indicators so as to compare different farms in a

• The "bottom-up" approach, which requires systematic participation to understand the

• The "top-down" approach, which enables to define the overall structure for achieving the

There have been developed a large number of sustainability assessment tools to gain insight into the sustainability performance of farms. These tools generally integrate a wide range of subjects and indicators to develop a holistic view on farm-level sustainability and are used for different purposes, such as monitoring, certification, consumer information, farm advice, and research [43–46]. Moreover, after a sustainability assessment, additional efforts are needed to discuss the assessment outcomes with farmers and other stakeholders and translate these into

Creating a tool requires collaboration between researchers and farmers; input from farmers needs to be accepted as being complementary to traditional scientific knowledge [48]. Sustainability indicators are often developed by scientists, expressed in technical language. It is commonly accepted that if the stakeholders, who will ultimately benefit from indicators, are involved in indicator conceptualization and development, then it is far more likely that they would use and appreciate the results [49, 50]. One of the main roles of indicators is communication with stakeholders. Hence, several authors [48, 51] agree that the participation and consultation of farmers is a key element in building and developing indicators. However, different types of stakeholders can interpret indicators differently, due to different values,

3. Methodologies for assessing sustainability in agricultural systems

that cannot be observed in the time frame required for intervention [35, 36].

region or country and analyze the evolution over time [41].

meaningful decisions for change [43, 44, 47].

Spohn [42] identifies two main approaches for sustainability assessment:

framework as well as the key sustainable development indicators.

sustainability, and subsequently, it is broken down into a set of indicators.

and research regarding landscape [32–34].

36 Sustainability Assessment and Reporting

by its ecosystem [10, 37, 38].

At another related level, self-assessment approaches used by local communities are examples of complementary approaches to the more traditional use of indicators for measuring and communicating sustainability-related issues. Community-based monitoring refers to a range of activities through which concerned citizens gather and record systematic observations about social or environmental conditions, often in collaboration with academia, industry, government, or community institutions [55]. Through participatory monitoring and evaluation, research in the late 90s has revolved around finding ways to help different people to identify clearly their information needs and acceptable forms of assessing information [56]. Stakeholders' own assessment of sustainability performance could be used to make qualitative comparative analysis with the formal technical assessments that are provided by indicators. As an indirect way of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the technical indicator sets and concluding about its overall utility, an evaluation of sustainability indicators by stakeholders can be used. Significant gaps between indicator data and stakeholders' perceptions can point to a failure in fulfilling that role. The credibility of sustainability self-assessment and the related procedures and outcomes analysis is a relatively underexplored issue, but it could be of particular importance [57].

Sustainability indicators are a tool that can be used by farmers at the farm or field level to assess the effects of managerial changes [58]. Many indicators are purely theoretical, in which modeling, equations, and simulations are used to provide an evaluation and cannot be used directly as a decision tool by farmers. At the farm level, complex tools that require a lot of information and expert knowledge to provide environmental estimates are generally not suitable. Many indicators for other kinds of assessment or monitoring are transferred to agriculture to let farmers assess and evaluate farming systems [59].

As Van de Fliert and Braun [60] attest, farmers have a critical role to play in assessing sustainable agriculture because their responsibilities for managing natural resources are increasing. Zhen and Routray [61] proposed that assessments should be closely linked to the context of specific farming systems. Several frameworks that assess sustainability include the development of indicators [38, 62, 63]. According to the context, the framework can change with different endusers and it should incorporate characteristics that can be generally applied under different conditions [38].

Girardin et al. [64] reported that the environmental impacts of an agricultural practice can be compared with reference values. These reference values can be a target value, defined as an optimal level, or as the minimal level required for sustainability [63]. Reference values provide guidelines to improve farm systems.

To deal a challenge with measurement for sustainability and its dimensions, a variety of methods or agri-environmental indicators have been developed [43, 44, 51, 65–69]. For instance, some researchers focused on investigated environmental phenomena related to farming systems and/

or farming practices [43, 44, 51, 61, 70–73]. The indicator accounting methods in the literature have usually been proposed for specific farming sectors, such as arable farms (i.e., method AEI by Girardin et al. [64] evaluating the impact of practices on agroecosystem and its environment); crops, livestock, and forestry (i.e., method LCAE by Rossier [74] or SD by Pointereau et al. [75] evaluating the environmental impact); and for specific target groups (i.e., method IFS by Vilain [76] or MOP by Vereijken [77]) such as farmers, farm advisers, policy makers, or researchers [70, 78, 79].

The indicators are adopted by countries and corporations because of their ability to condense the enormous complexity of the dynamic environment to a manageable amount of meaningful

Methodologies for Assessing Sustainability in Farming Systems

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The selection of sustainability indicators is essentially a political process [89, 90]. This implies reconciling "expert-led" and "community-led" perspectives on sustainable development pri-

• Policy relevance: It should address issues considered of importance for policy making.

• Validity: It may be viewed from a variety of perspectives, including those of scientists, farmers, rural residents, and consumers. Therefore, a valid indicator must be able to reconcile the need for sound scientific analysis with a requirement to be recognized as

• Accessibility: The selection of an indicator must match to the scale that is appropriate to

• Measurability: To monitor policy impact, the importance is the availability or easy acqui-

There have been consistent efforts at international level to identify appropriate sustainability indicators. The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) has derived a list of 58 indicators for all countries to use. Booysen [93] defined the following

• Methods for development of indexes (quantitative/qualitative, subjective/objective, cardi-

• Indicators comparing sustainability measure across "time-series" or "cross-section," abso-

• Clarity and simplicity in its content, purpose, method, comparative application, and

The accuracy and credibility related with the evaluation of sustainability indicators are an essential aspect of their development process. The progress towards a more sustainable agricultural production can only be made when the objectives defined by different stakeholders

A major aspect of the design of indicators is the use of participatory processes. Expert participation provides a preliminary validation of the indicator set. Compromises between feasibility, practicability, and relevance of measurements should be considered including spatial and

general dimension of measurement for the classification and evaluation of indicators:

• Measuring sustainability in terms of input ("means") or output ("ends").

• Flexibility for allowing change, purpose, method, and comparative application.

orities [91]. OECD [92] included criteria for indicator selection as follows:

those decision-makers avoiding relevance at only a particular scale.

information [88].

sition of data.

lute or relative manner.

can be translated into practical measures.

focus.

• Availability of data.

legitimate by other non-scientist.

• Aspects of sustainability measured by indicators.

nal/ordinal, unidimensional/multidimensional).

Agroecological studies have recognized the importance of analyzing environmental impacts as an aspect for measuring environmental sustainability in agriculture [38, 64, 69, 78, 80]. Different environmental objective groups (or attributes) were assessed in these studies. Notably, the Agro-Ecological System Attributes (AESA) and the Statistical Simulation Modeling (SSM) approaches covered three environmental objective groups. The Response Inducing Sustainability Evaluation (RISE) and Scenario Based Approach (SBA) incorporated only two environmental objective groups. Some agroecological sustainability indicators have been formulated considering any environmental objective group. For instance, Farmer Sustainability Index (FSI), Sustainable Agricultural Practice (SAP), Sustainability Assessment of the Farming and the Environment (SAFE), Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI), and Multi-scale Methodological Framework (MMF) methods [81].
