A Tool for the Sustainability Assessment of Farms: Selection, Adaptation and Use of Indicators for an Italian Case Study

Abstract

Indicator-based tools are widely used for the assessment of farm sustainability, but analysts still face methodological and conceptual issues, including data availability, the complexity of the concept of sustainability and the heterogeneity of agricultural systems. This study contributes to this debate through the illustration of a procedure for farm sustainability assessment focussed on the case study of the South Milan Agricultural Park, Italy. The application is based on a set of environmental, social and economic indicators retrieved from the literature review. The framework is based on three main steps: (i) Data collection mainly through interviews with farmers and institutions; (ii) data elaboration through an aggregative structure; and (iii) score analysis. The latter step includes a descriptive analysis that allows a comparison among farms or groups of farms and a principal components analysis that helps to confirm the dimensions in which indicators were previously included (components). Results derived from the sampled farms show that the framework can provide easy-to-read results useful at different levels. The study highlighted the procedures for the framework construction that is compatible with the region's context and objectives, using an analytical approach that aims at the use of balanced features of availability and reliability of data.

Assessing the Impacts of Higher Education Institutions on Sustainable Development—An Analysis of Tools and Indicators

“…The findings suggest that it is important to balance the quality of assessment with the effort and data needed, especially for comprehensive tools that are meant for wide and regular application, such as STARS. The literature on sustainability assessment in adjacent fields also suggests that if SATs are to be widely adopted by HEIs, then they need to enable assessments based on internal data readily available to HEIs [79]. SATs that require additional efforts in data collection (e.g., via alumni surveys) may pose considerable difficulties for their adoption.…”

Assessment of Sustainability in Agriculture of the European Union Countries

“…Latruffe et al [17] emphasize that the assessments were not carried out in a comprehensive manner and that they took into account only the selected dimensions of sustainability. Studies concerning sustainable agriculture in the European Union were quite rare and mostly measured the sustainability level of farmsteads [22][23][24][25] or covered selected member states only [15,26,27]. The sustainability of agriculture was measured by means of various indicators, often being predominantly environmental [28].…”

The Influence of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy on the Socio-Economic Sustainability of Farms (the Case of Poland)

“…Therefore, in the macroeconomic dimension, it can be assumed that the higher the income of all farms and the more even their income distribution, the higher the level of social sustainability. This approach is used by, inter alia, Gaviglio et al [27] while assessing the case study of the South Milan Agricultural Park, Italy. Hence, among the variables describing social sustainability, the authors mention equality in terms of labor factor payment.…”