The Use of Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of Farms Converting to Organic Production

(1) I.N. Milla, (2) P. Harris and (3) C. Firth

Abstract
A key feature of farm sustainability is the need to protect and make optimum use of limited natural resources within an economically efficient and socially acceptable agricultural system. Organic farming is often presented as a sustainable solution for agriculture. It is a challenge to measure sustainability in a practical way.

This paper is based on a project which aimed to discover and test a suitable method for assessing changes in sustainability at the farm level. It studied the changes in sustainability on three conventional farms that had converted to organic production systems in the UK.

A set of indicators for evaluating farm sustainability was devised, based on the French ‘Method IDEA’ (Indicators of Sustainability in Agriculture), which works with the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, social and economic.

The main conclusions from this project were that conversion to organic production increased the social sustainability of the all the farms studied. The environmental dimension has tended to either increase, or stay at a high level. In contrast to this, the economic dimension has decreased or increased slightly from a low level.

The technique has proved a useful way of obtaining a broad ranging snapshot of a farm’s sustainability. The project was limited by the small sample of three farms, and applying the technique to a larger sample of farms would certainly strengthen the validity of the conclusions.

 

(1) Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera S/n. 46022, Valencia, Spain;
(2) School of Science and the Environment, Coventry University, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK;
(3) HDRA, Ryton Organic Gardens, Coventry, CV8 3LG, UK

Source
"Organic Farming: Science and Practice for Profitable Livestock and Cropping"
Proceedings of Symposium No. 37, British Grassland Society, 2004
Association of Applied Biologist & Colloquium of Organic Researchers

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Posted October 2007