Sustainability assessment of smallholder farms in developing countries

Goswami, Rupak; Saha, Subhrajit; Dasgupta, Purnabha

doi:10.1080/21683565.2017.1290730

Cited by 38 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Ambiguity or uncertainty about what an individual or organization is referring to when they use the term "regenerative agriculture" may create multiple challenges. First, without a clear, stated definition of regenerative agriculture, it may be difficult or impossible for researchers to test a specific claim about the benefits or outcomes of regenerative agriculture (Goswami et al, 2017). Clear definitions may be an important component of effective communication and engagement between scientists and practitioners (White and Andrew, 2019).…”

Section: Implications For Policy and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Formalizing terms can mitigate these issues to an extent, but it is only part of the challenge and is not necessarily the preferred outcome for all actors (Schaller, 1990;DeLind, 2000). Finally, the absence of a clear understanding of what regenerative agriculture is, and whether it is or should be process-or outcome-based, has implications for policy and program development (Goswami et al, 2017). We explore some of these implications below, in relation to the development of certification programs and carbon payments for regenerative agriculture.…”

Section: Implications For Policy and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes

Newton

Civita

Frankel-Goldwater

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

228

184

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Regenerative agriculture is an alternative means of producing food that, its advocates claim, may have lower-or even net positive-environmental and/or social impacts. Regenerative agriculture has recently received significant attention from producers, retailers, researchers, and consumers, as well as politicians and the mainstream media. Despite widespread interest in regenerative agriculture, no legal or regulatory definition of the term "regenerative agriculture" exists nor has a widely accepted definition emerged in common usage. This paper answers the research question: How have different scholars and practitioners defined regenerative agriculture? We reviewed 229 journal articles and 25 practitioner websites to characterize the term "regenerative agriculture." Our review revealed that there were many definitions and descriptions of regenerative agriculture in usage. These were variously based on processes (e.g., use of cover crops, the integration of livestock, and reducing or eliminating tillage), outcomes (e.g., to improve soil health, to sequester carbon, and to increase biodiversity), or combinations of the two. Process-based definitions may imply that advocates or users of such definitions are open-minded about the possible outcomes of these processes. Similarly, outcome-based definitions may imply that users of such definitions are open-minded about the processes that may lead to those outcomes. We discuss the implications of these different forms of definition for policy, including for certification programs and for payments for carbon sequestration programs. More generally, wide variance in the definitions used may lead to uncertainty about what different actors mean when they talk about regenerative agriculture. We suggest that it may be helpful for individual users of the term "regenerative agriculture" to define it comprehensively for their own purpose and context.

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Section: Implications For Policy and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Implications For Policy and Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes

Newton

Civita

Frankel-Goldwater

et al. 2020

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

228

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The indicators were normalized and aggregated and each theme was evaluated based on the average score of the relevant subthemes [28]. Goswami et al (2017) integrated the sustainable livelihood (SL) and the drivers-pressures-stateimpact-response (DPSIR) framework, proposing a small farm sustainability index (SFSI) that could address the complexity of small-holder family farms under a participatory approach [35]. The proposed framework assesses sustainability in multiple levels assigning the relevant weights and resulting in the creation of an aggregated index for the entire system.…”

Section: Indicator Sets Indexed and Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural Sustainability: A Review of Concepts and Methods

2019

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This paper presents a methodological framework for the systematic literature review of agricultural sustainability studies. The framework synthesizes all the available literature review criteria and introduces a two-level analysis facilitating systematization, data mining, and methodology analysis. The framework was implemented for the systematic literature review of 38 crop agricultural sustainability assessment studies at farm-level for the last decade. The investigation of the methodologies used is of particular importance since there are no standards or norms for the sustainability assessment of farming practices. The chronological analysis revealed that the scientific community’s interest in agricultural sustainability is increasing in the last three years. The most used methods include indicator-based tools, frameworks, and indexes, followed by multicriteria methods. In the reviewed studies, stakeholder participation is proved crucial in the determination of the level of sustainability. It should also be mentioned that combinational use of methodologies is often observed, thus a clear distinction of methodologies is not always possible.

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“…For assessing the sustainability of smallholder farms, we followed the relevant frameworks of local and global importance (FAO, 2014;Goswami, Saha, & Dasgupta, 2017;Rao & Rogers, 2006).…”

Section: Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we identified 39 indicators covering social (16), economic (12), and ecological (11) dimensions of sustainability (Table S3). These indicators were standardized, winsorized, weighted, and aggregated to develop a composite sustainability index (SI) (OECD, 2008;Goswami et al, 2017). We employed factor loadings of PCs for weighing indicators and aggregated them linearly to develop a composite sustainability index.…”

Section: Sustainability Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource Interaction in Smallholder Farms is Linked to Farm Sustainability: Evidence from Indian Sundarbans

Goswami¹,

Brodt²,

Patra³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Shrinking farm size and fragile farm resources pose a significant challenge to the sustainability of small-scale farms. Efficient resource utilization in small-scale farms is crucial to achieving farm sustainability through endogenous mechanisms. However, the precise mechanisms to integrate physical resources to achieve farm sustainability are not very clear yet. By capturing the interaction among farm resources as a network phenomenon, we identify the discrete resource interactions (RIs) in different types of small-scale farms of Indian Sundarbans, which are associated with higher farm sustainability. Thirty-two linkages, 11 reciprocal linkages, 22 triads, and three ‘core elements’ that occurred and cooccurred on highly sustainable farms are found to be critical in achieving farm sustainability. Using the properties of resource interaction networks as explanators of farm sustainability, we anticipate that sustainability in small-scale farms can be achieved by strategically creating new RIs on the farm. However, there may be limitations to such achievement depending on the nature of RI and type of farm. The analytical approach helps to understand the structural basis of sustainability in small-scale farms, and this approach can be used to achieve farm sustainability through the strategic integration of existing farm resources in the smallholder systems.

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Sustainability assessment of smallholder farms in developing countries

Cited by 38 publications

References 59 publications

What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes

What Is Regenerative Agriculture? A Review of Scholar and Practitioner Definitions Based on Processes and Outcomes

Agricultural Sustainability: A Review of Concepts and Methods

Resource Interaction in Smallholder Farms is Linked to Farm Sustainability: Evidence from Indian Sundarbans

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