Farm assessment tools and methodologies

Farmers and their farms play a crucial role in the transition towards more sustainable agriculture and food systems. Recognizing the urgent need for increasing resilience of socio-economic and ecological systems, we must consider sustainability assessment as an auspicious instrument for improving decision-making strategies at farm level to facilitate sustainable change.

Sustainability is the buzzword in the current debate about the environmental impact of the agricultural and food sector. The sector needs to become much more sustainable, most experts, practicioners and political decision-makers agree. But how this should be done, continues to cause heated debates. The central question is: how can we produce and provide sufficient healthy and culturally appropriate food for a growing  population in a resource limited world? At the same time, farmers should reduce negative environmental and social impacts of food production.

In the view of increasing environmental concerns, sustainability has come into the foreground over the past decade and several sustainability assessment tools have been developed. Critiques claim though, sustainability is only an empty phrase because of frequent unreflective usage and overstretching of the concept - often solely for commercialization purpose. Nonetheless, sustainability assessment is more important than ever due to ongoing environmental degradation, socioeconomic worsening or even crises related to agriculture and food systems.

As part of activities targeting Result 2 in our project (task A: Survey of the methodological background and critical review of the existing assessments tools), we are aiming at the development of our own Eco-Farm Assessment & Decision Tool (EAD Tool). The survey, which was recently completed, gives an overview of the methodological background of selected farm assessment tools, CAP measures, farm data and information systems, implemented at the national levels.