Our experts are experienced in delivering the program across a wide range of crops and agricultural products. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-015-0305-2, Skoufias E, Rabassa M, Olivieri S (2011) The poverty impacts of climate change: a review of the evidence, Sltmo E, Fischer K, Rs E (2017) The framing of sustainability in sustainability assessment frameworks for agriculture. Keep up to date with the work of SAI Platform via our newsletter or social media. Integrated farm sustainability assessment for the environmental The agricultural sector faces global sustainability challenges, including overuse of agro-chemicals, rising greenhouse gas emissions, degraded soils, simplified landscapes, poor working conditions, waning profitability and loss of livelihoods. (1997). The classical view incorporating the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability was used by nearly two-thirds of the studies (Fig. (2018) for groups 1 to 5, respectively). For contracted clients of Certifications only. Social Life Cycle Assessment: farming practices carried out within the farms boundaries are rated within 11 social impact categories (including e.g., health and safety, fair wages, no discrimination) addressing three stakeholder groups: workers, local communities and consumers. /content/basf/agriculture/global/en/sustainable-agriculture, /content/basf/agriculture/global/en/sustainable-agriculture/climate-smart-farming, /content/basf/agriculture/global/en/sustainable-agriculture/climate-smart-farming/sustainability-assessments. Land Use Policy 62:132142. The Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) provides companies a standardized approach to achieve their sustainable farming targets. Is FSA actually up and running and proven to be effective, or is it a new initiative that has yet to be properly road-tested? To analyse the references, we used R package wosr (Baker 2018) to extract title, journal name, abstract and various meta-data in an R table, facilitating subsequent data treatment. 2020). Agric Syst 182:102842. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2020.102842, Lopez-Ridaura S, van Keulen H, van Ittersum M, Leffelaar P (2005) Multi-scale sustainability evaluation of natural resource management systems: quantifying indicators for different scales of analysis and their trade-offs using linear programming. The remaining 16 themes were not often employed in the papers reviewed and included family characteristics (e.g. Environ Impact Assess Rev 69:7081. This can be explained by the fact that environmental indicators have undergone a boom (Riley 2001), which has certainly led to more clarity on the various impacts of agriculture on the environment and has eased their assessment with methodological developments. All stakeholders should be actively involved in the framing of sustainability and in the choice of indicators, in order to achieve better transfer of assessment outcomes. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is the use of pairwise comparison of different farms or indicators to evaluate outcomes (Saaty 2008). Assessment type is the kind of tool that can be used for rating the level of sustainability, which we grouped into seven types. Analysis of sustainability dimensions and themes targeted, 3. 2014). When using tools in group 4 Consultation-based assessment, researchers only consulted stakeholders at a single phase of the sustainability assessment, such as rating farm performance, while in group 5 Active engagement of stakeholder-based assessment, stakeholders collaborated on data collection and contributed expertise and opinions in selection and rating of indicators. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.10.013, UNAIDS (2010) An introduction to indicators. https://doi.org/10.1300/J064v24n02_08, Florin MJ, van Ittersum MK, van de Ven GWJ (2012) Selecting the sharpest tools to explore the food-feed-fuel debate: sustainability assessment of family farmers producing food, feed and fuel in Brazil. GS23F8182H, Diazabakana A, Latruffe L, Bockstaller C, et al (2014) A review of farm level indicators of sustainability with a focus on CAP and FADN, Dizdaroglu D (2017) The role of indicator-based sustainability assessment in policy and the decision-making process: a review and outlook. 2009). 5 key principles of sustainability for food and agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2016.11.002, Subramanian K, Chau CK, Yung WKC (2018) Relevance and feasibility of the existing social LCA methods and case studies from a decision-making perspective. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-006-9029-7, Chiwaka E, Yates R (2005) Participatory vulnerability analysis: a step-by-step guide for field staff. Renew Energy 131:128136. Other members chose not to use it at all. How to get the FSA label? Hence, for the SMART tool operationalising the FAOs Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture (SAFA), we used the corresponding version of the publication (FAO 2014). Social sustainability in agriculture - A system-based framework As a result, sugar companies (SAI Platform member companies and others alike) are now actively communicating their FSA performance levels to multiple customers. French, FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture For example, the tree tomato sector has a relatively low environmental and high economic performance, suggesting an economic-environmental trade-off. Ecol Soc 19:46, Meul M, Van Passel S, Nevens F et al (2008) MOTIFS: a monitoring tool for integrated farm sustainability. Most indicators addressing the impact of farm practices on biodiversity were pressure and state indicators of various types. Then, for each dimension, we listed all the themes associated with it. 2017). 4). The framework used by TempAg, an international research consortium for sustainable agriculture in temperate regions (Gregory and Kougioumoutzi 2016), describes the relationships between tool characteristics with correlation analysis (Wustenberghs et al. Depending on the sustainability analysis goal and scope, either only one of these or both methods can be used in parallel. When it comes to resilience, as external drivers such as climate change or market volatility become stronger, adding related themes will become more important to capture the resilience of a system, its viability and its robustness. What is Farm Sustainability Assessment ? Many indicators capture resilience for cropping systems (Urruty et al. yields, income, losses of nutrients) (e.g. They can also be designed for different purposes, such as raising awareness, reporting, project evaluation, and market-oriented assessment (Colomb et al., 2012). only milk production on mixed farms, n = 83) or supply-chain level (n = 74). In this program we perform verification services with the supplier and the farmers they source from. URL: http://reports.eea.eu.int/TEC25/en/tab_content_RLR. For social equity and gender balance, very few farm level indicators were used in the reviewed literature. to follow the flow of nitrogen in the system (Prado et al. This shows that metrics are largely shared among scientists to assess the viability of farming. Top-down tools generally lack emphasis on the local context. Farm Sustainability Assessment SAI Platform Indicators assessing gender equality at farm level could capture the effective participation of women not only in farming activities, but also in operational and strategic decisions related to these activities, asset management or cash access. Learn how BASF approaches Sustainablity Assessments in the farming sector measuring sustainability applying principles of Life Cycle Assessments. tillage impact on various environmental issues (n = 200), or when only one state variable was evaluated, such as soil organic matter change (n = 249). International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rome, Jacobi J, Mukhovi S, Llanque A, Augstburger H, Kser F, Pozo C, Ngutu Peter M, Delgado JMF, Kiteme BP, Rist S, Ifejika Speranza C (2018) Operationalizing food system resilience: an indicator-based assessment in agroindustrial, smallholder farming, and agroecological contexts in Bolivia and Kenya. 2017; Bonisoli et al. Only one driver to increase potential implementation of such practices at farm level was mentioned, which was promotion of social justice/equity (Goldberger 2011). : # Link to tool or to a website with information about the tool: # Tool producer/owner: (name and link/ address/ email) ##, https://organic-farmknowledge.org/tool/39608, https://organic-farmknowledge.org/tool/39114. We found that the diversity of themes was higher for economic and social dimensions, despite fewer themes being addressed on average in each tool, which shows less consensus on the themes required to address these two dimensions compared with the environmental dimension. Assess, improve, and validate on-farm sustainability in your supply chain. Methodologies for Assessing Sustainability in Farming Systems The search was done using the TS field, which allows searches for different topics in title, abstract and keywords (Eq. BASF has developed a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model called AgBalanceto support farmers and value chain players in measuring, demonstrating, and improving their sustainability performance in farm operations across all three sustainability pillars: environmental, social, and economic. Measured in MJ, Water scarcity: potential of water deprivation to humans and ecosystems; agriculture is the main source of global water withdrawals through, e.g., irrigation. Data collection refers to how data were collected for the assessment at farm level, e.g. It created the Farm Sustainability Assessment (FSA) tool to evaluate the level of on-farm sustainability. adoption of grass strips leads to a decrease in erosion. We found that participation varies greatly among approaches with our categorical ordinal variable that describes the level of stakeholder engagement from no participation to consultation and active involvement. (2015) adopted an embedded sustainability view, with human embedded into community and community into society. This corresponded to a reduction of 35% CO2e per ton of grain, or 1 t CO2e/ha less released into the atmosphere. Measured in kg CFC-11 equivalent, Particulate matter: increase in human mortality rate due to increased exposure to PM2,5, a mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets found in air, which forms out of various chemicals (e.g., NOx, SOx) emitted through soil cultivation, fuel combustion and biomass burning. FSA can also be used to identify potential risk topics (hotspots or trends) in specific supply chain and/or regions and, in some cases, it eliminates often unseen duplication in assessments and verification efforts. 2019). FSA is used to evaluate the level of on-farm sustainability, to spur continuous farm improvement, support sustainable supply chain goals, and to benchmark existing standards, codes, schemes and legislation. 5). 2011), Life Cycle Costing (Dwaikat and Ali 2018) or other similar methods were not used in any of the papers reviewed in the present analysis. It provides a good picture of the profitability of the system, but its use without thresholds cannot really provide information on whether a farm is viable or not. Third, we selected the main themes from the MCA to group studies based on their similarity using ascending hierarchical clustering (AHC) and Ward criteria (Ward 1963). Impacts were the consequences of the change of state. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.03.046, Chopin P, Guind L, Causeret F, Bergkvist G, Blazy JM (2019b) Integrating stakeholder preferences into assessment of scenarios for electricity production from locally produced biomass on a small island. The equation was divided into four topics, and for each topic, we identified potential synonyms to build our equation (Eq. The studies in this group typically employ a sustainability framework from the literature and implement it without any contribution from stakeholders in terms of definition of indicators or sustainability themes targeted. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2013.842341, Morse S, Fraser ED (2005) Making dirty nations look clean? This group gathers the most frequently used tools and represents survey-based assessment of farm sustainability. 2015). SAI Platform created FSA in 2014 to assess the level of on-farm sustainability and to benchmark existing standards. The governance oriented view represented 13% of the sample (Fig. Using the word farm* and agr* resulted in exclusion of a range of papers where the sustainability analysis was conducted at another spatial scale, namely field level (n = 703), landscape (n = 294), production system (e.g. 2019a). State, or state of the environment, is the condition of the environment. 2017) and indicators of economic sustainability (Latruffe et al. To improve the state of agriculture, various management changes have been proposed. 2020). FSA is intended for farms of all sizes (including large, smallholders and grower groups). Each participating farm will receive its NMB and the summary of all farms to which . Agritourism Allows Farms To Diversify and Has Potential Benefits for 2020). Agron Sustain Dev 39:36, Marchand F, Debruyne L, Triste L et al (2014) Key characteristics for tool choice in indicator-based sustainability assessment at farm level. Sustainability Assessments - BASF Assessing the diversity of tool characteristics could help establish the connections between the variables that define the sustainability assessment and reveal ways to improve their use by considering these links. By Regan Stephens. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.06.031, Coteur I, Marchand F, Debruyne L, Dalemans F, Lauwers L (2016) A framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 43:123. Biol Conserv 141:24172431. Protect and enhance natural resources. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2018.1489934. Agric Syst 55:503533. The tools use an average level of complexity of indicators, with some combinations of variables and mostly indicators from the literature. 1. 2005; Talukder et al. high productivity). The systemic dimension of sustainability assessment refers to the representation of the main structures, processes and functions of the economic, ecological and social fields of the system studied (Binder et al. Many previous studies have examined specific topics of interest regarding specification of tools used for farm sustainability assessment. There was some overlap among the different dimensions in terms of themes addressed. J Rural Stud 27:288296. Soil sampling can be done to measure, e.g. No time limitation was applied in the search. SAI Platform develops programmes and tools to help you see the bigger picture and make change on the ground. 2016). It is known that in integrated participatory or transdisciplinary approaches stakeholders are included throughout the whole process, ensuring the reliability and suitability of tool implementation, acceptance of the results and probability of implementation of practices (Binder et al. The literature search was closed on 2 May 2019, and the results encompassed 2567 papers with a time span from 1990 (Fig. Our agriculture specialists provide a range of services to support the FSA program, including: Wherever you operate in the world, we are ready to support your agricultural business with solutions that reduce risk while sustainably improving commercial outcomes. Framework description and test for organic systems and N fertiliser optimisation. Crucially, it can capture the trade-offs across different kinds of environmental impact as well as that between economy and environment implied by certain practices. PDF Farm Sustainability Assessment (Fsa) 2.1 Third Party Verification Audit The present analysis of dimensions and themes in each method provides more insights into the array of frameworks that can be adopted to assess sustainability and the diversity of themes per dimension. In the present analysis, the lack of variables to assess stakeholder involvement in various stages of tool development and use prevented us from providing specific general guidelines on this. 2016; Bonisoli et al. System existence refers to whether the tool is applied in an ex-post manner on an existing system or ex-ante, i.e. 2). A farm sustainability assessment can illuminate challenges But what real benefit does FSA deliver to companies?In short, FSA helps you save time and resources by avoiding multiple assessments of farmers sustainability practices. 2023 SGS Socit Gnrale de Surveillance SA, Supports and improves product sustainability along the supply chain, Ensures compliance with client requirements on social and environmental criteria, Audits in accordance with benchmarked standards (REDcert, REDcert2, ISCC EU, ISCC PLUS, GLOBALG.A.P.
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