Measurement of sustainability in agriculture: A review of indicators
Open accessAbstract
In recent decades, the concept of sustainability has become increasingly prominent in agricultural policy debates. This has led more and more stakeholders to pay attention to the questions of monitoring and evaluation of agricultural practices, and raised the question of appropriate indicators to assess sustainability aspects of given practices. We provide here a review of indicators of sustainability for agriculture. We describe sustainability indicators used in the literature following the typology based on the three sustainability pillars: environmental, economic and social. The literature review shows that the environmental pillar has undergone an ‘indicator explosion’, due to the multitude of themes covered and the attention given by society to this dimension of sustainability. By contrast, economic indicators target a relatively small number of themes. Social indicators typically cover two main themes: sustainability relating to the farming community and sustainability relating to society as a whole. The measurement of these social indicators is challenging as they are often qualitative and may therefore be considered subjective. Careful attention should be given to the choice of indicators, since the data measured will infl uence the calculation of that indicator and therefore the outcome of the analysis. It should fi rst be decided whether individual or composite indicators are preferable, and whether single indicators or a set of indicators should be used. Also, sustainability assessments should be validated, credible and reproducible. Several selection criteria are provided in the literature, such as representativeness, transferability, adaptability and measurability at an acceptable cost.
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Dependency on external inputs makes farming systems highly sensitive to market volatility and shocks.
“In essence, sustainable FSs should seek to minimize the dependency on external inputs [34,36], which makes them highly sensitive to market volatility and shocks [35].”
From Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Divergent Mediterranean Farming Systems: Cyprus as a Case Study (2020) · cites this paper as [35]
The Economic pillar section says farms relying less on external inputs are less sensitive to input availability and price fluctuations. This supports a link between external-input dependence and vulnerability, but it does not establish that farms are *highly* sensitive to market volatility and shocks generally. (LLM, conf=0.82)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOff/non-farm income is a source of income diversification and an alternative livelihood strategy (especially for small-scale farmers) that may keep farming activity alive.
“It is a source of income diversification and an alternative livelihood strategy (especially for small-scale farmers) that may keep farming activity alive [16,21,35].”
From Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Divergent Mediterranean Farming Systems: Cyprus as a Case Study (2020) · cites this paper as [35]
The Economic pillar section says off-farm employment by farmers or their families diversifies household income. It discusses long-term farm viability, but does not say off-farm income is especially a livelihood strategy for small-scale farmers or that it may keep farming activity alive. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredHigh subsidy dependence might put the sustainability of farms at risk.
“This, of course, might put the sustainability of farms at risk [35].”
From Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Divergent Mediterranean Farming Systems: Cyprus as a Case Study (2020) · cites this paper as [35]
Subsidies dependency is an important aspect of system's autonomy and economic independence.
“Subsidies dependency is an important aspect of system's autonomy and economic independence [35,40].”
From Integrated Sustainability Assessment of Divergent Mediterranean Farming Systems: Cyprus as a Case Study (2020) · cites this paper as [35]
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References 43 · Cited by 324
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Bockstaller, C., Stapleton, L.M., Van der Heide, M., Géniaux, G., Bellon, S., Josien, E., Raley, M. and Alkan-Olsson, J. (2009b): From a disaggregated set of indicators to a synthetic, composite assessment of sustainability: Paths and pitfalls, in M. Van It- tersum, J. Wolf and G. Van Laar (eds), Proceedings of the con- ference 'Integrated Assessment of Agriculture and Sustainable Development; Setting the Agenda for Science and Policy', Eg- mond aan Zee, The Netherlands, 10-12 March 2009, 178-179.
- Bockstaller, C., Feschet, P. and Angevin, F. (2015): Issues in evalu- ating sustainability of farming systems with indicators. OCL -Oilseeds and fats, Crops and Lipids 22 (1), D102.
- Diazabakana, A., Latruffe, L., Bockstaller, C., Desjeux, Y., Finn, J., Kelly, E., Ryan, M. and Uthes, S. (2014): A Review of Farm Level Indicators of Sustainability with a Focus on CAP and FADN. Deliverable 1.2 of the EU FP7 project FLINT.
- Mancebo, F. (2006): Le Développement Durable [Sustainable De- velopment]. Armand Colin (ed.), France.
- Authors
- Latruffe, L., Diazabakana, A., Bockstaller, C., Desjeux, Y., Finn, J., Kelly, E., Ryan, M., & Uthes, S.
- Affiliations
- Structures et marchés agricoles, ressources et territoires (FR)
- Laboratoire agronomie et environnement - Antenne Colmar (FR)
- Teagasc - The Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority (IE)
- Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (DE)
- Venue
- Studies in Agricultural Economics
- Published
- 2016-12-01
- Volume
- 118
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 123-130
- ISSN
- 1418-2106 (ISSN-L)
- 2063-0476
- OpenAlex
- W2580031525
- Cited by
- 324
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 27 · 2025: 42 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 10.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Studies in Agricultural Economics (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- T-Stór (Teagasc) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- AgEcon Search (University of Minnesota, USA)
- Funders
- European Commission (613800)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Chemistry › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Agricultural economics and policies
- Keywords
- sustainability indicators, sustainable agriculture, sustainability assessment, environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, social sustainability, composite index, indicator selection criteria, sustainability pillars
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