Sustainability indicators as management tools to guide farmers, scientists, policy makers and the general public

Sustainability indicators as management tools to guide farmers, scientists, policy makers and the general public

Summary

At the Center for Environmental Farming System (CEFS) at North Carolina State University we have a unique production systems experiment where a wide range of parameters has been collected since 1998. By using these data as a starting point, our project seeks to develop an approach to relate these data back to the guiding concept of agricultural sustainability.

A comprehensive list of economic, social, and ecological sustainability attributes has been identified. A survey using conjoint analysis methodology and direct attribute ranking was designed and conducted to estimate the relative impact of individual attributes on the overall perception of sustainability by farmers, scientists, and other stakeholders for aggregate sustainability assessment.

Specific indicators used to quantify various sustainability attributes were selected based on the data collected at CEFS over years. Currently, we are working on the development of graphical and numerical tools that would allow us to present the overall sustainability scores associated with different production systems evaluated at CEFS.

Objectives/Performance Targets

To derive a manageable set of indicators to evaluate the environmental, biological, and financial aspects of sustainability of organic, BMP, conventional, and integrated farming at the system and enterprise (crop/rotation, animal activity) level.

To collect additional data on specific sustainability indicators for which insufficient information is available from existing projects at CEFS.

To develop a tool for bringing together various indicators of sustainability in a single picture that shows at a glance where progress is made.

Accomplishments/Milestones

The theoretical sustainability model identifying economic, social, and ecological sustainability attributes was approved at the quarterly project meeting in March 2006 and presented at the National SARE conference in Ocomowoc, WI in August 2006.

A survey designed to assess the relative impact of different sustainability attributes for aggregate sustainability assessment was administered from November 2006 to February 2007. Survey responses were collected during various specialized farmer meetings (Sustainable Agriculture Conference, Mid-Atlantic Dairy Grazing Conference, Organic Grains Panel, and Southeast Vegetable and Fruit Expo), and through mail. Two procedures were applied in the survey to estimate the relative impact of different attributes. In the direct attribute ranking, respondents were asked to distribute 100 points among different attributes. As an alternative, conjoint choice experiments were designed to extract the attributes’ relative impacts in a setting where not all of the attributes achieve desirable levels simultaneously resembling more the real world choices in the multi-attribute settings.

The survey findings were summarized in a paper which was submitted for a publication in Agricultural Systems in June 2007, and accepted in January 2008 (forthcoming in 2008). This paper was also presented at the annual meetings of the Southern Agricultural Economic Association in Mobile, AL in February 2007 and submitted for a presentation at the 2008 Congress of the European Association of Agricultural Economists in Ghent, Belgium (decision pending).

In the last quarter of 2007 based on the data collected over years at CEFS, we selected a set of indicators that will be used to quantify sustainability of the production systems evaluated at CEFS (organic, conventional BMP, and integrated crop-animal). We worked within several expert groups focusing on specific sustainability attributes. Project collaborators at CEFS also collected complete set of indicators in fall 2007 to help our project and to assess the progress of different production systems 10 years after the beginning of the production systems experiment.

Currently, we are in the process of analyzing our indicator data, applying graphical and numerical tools that would allow us to present the overall sustainability scores associated with different production systems evaluated at CEFS, and preparing a manuscript summarizing our findings. Project end date is September 2008.

Collaborators: