A FarmBased Indicator of Agricultural Sustainability

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A Farm-Based Indicator of Agricultural
Sustainability

• Farmers as Adaptive Managers of Natural capital

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"The appellation of the word 'sustainable' to a
farming system remains a matter of opinion. Most
farmers and agricultural professionals have a
'feel' for what 'sustainable' is." (Smith, M.,
1994. The Real Dirt Farmers Tell About Organic
and Low-Input Practices in the Northeast,
Northeast Organic Farmers Association.)
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To paraphrase Rodale Sustainability is like
being pregnanteither you are or you arent.
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Goal To develop a readily-measurable indicator
of farm (agroecosystem) sustainability. The
difficulty of measurement should be comparable to
organic certification. Such an indicator would
enable

• Policy makers to support sustainable farm
  operations through legislation.
• Consumers to support sustainable farm operations
  through purchases.
• Farmers to analyze and address the sustainability
  of their own operations.

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Nice, but difficult to operationalize.

• First we need a definition
• "A sustainable agriculture is one that, over the
  long-term, enhances environmental quality and the
  resource base on which agriculture depends
  provides for basic human food and fiber needs is
  economically viable and enhances the quality of
  life for farmers and society as a whole" (FAO,
  1989).

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Characterizations of agricultural sustainability
Taken from Hansen, J.W., 1996. Is Agricultural
Sustainability a Useful Concept? Agricultural
Systems, 50117-143.

• Four frameworks for defining sustainability.
• Each framework leads naturally to methods of
  measurement.

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1. Sustainable agriculture as an ideology or
philosophy.

• Agriculture which embodies variously defined
  values such as
• Diversity
• Self-sufficiency
• Respect for Nature
• Decentralization
• Social Equity
• Examples include organic farming, biodynamic
  farming, and permaculture.
• Leads to a binary measure of sustainability A
  farm is sustainable if it follows a certain
  philosophy.

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2. Sustainable agriculture as a set of
practices.An approved set of sustainable
practices is defined. Practices are chosen by
their ability to maintain production while
limiting environmental impact.

• These often include
• Biological or organic pest controls
• Organic Soil Amendments
• Low stocking rates for animals
• Integrated Pest Management
• Conservation Tillage Practices

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This also leads to natural measures of
sustainability A farm that restricts itself to
the defined set of practices is deemed
sustainable.

• This is a common framework used to craft
  indicators.Leads to a continuous measure of
  sustainability.

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Can lead to circular reasoningSustainable
farms are those which adopt the practices used by
sustainable farms.

• This would readily imply that organic
  certification is a sufficient condition for
  sustainability.

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3. The ability to satisfy a diverse set of goals.

• A farm is sustainable if it is able to (pick any
  or all)
• Maintain a high level of production.
• Preserve and enhance natural capital.
• Provide a livelihood for a farm family.
• Sustain a rural culture.

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This is the framework for the FAO definition. It
is the most difficult of the four to
operationalize.

• Goals are indeed diverse and often difficult to
  measure in an efficient and concise manner.
• Commensurability is a major obstacle in crafting
  a numeric indicator.

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Consider such a condition for Vermont Farmers

• A list of goals for the sustainable Vermont farm
  would include
• High level of production, both economic and
  ecological.
• Must not get too big so as not to inconvenience
  neighbors.
• Must maintain rural landscape of Vermont.
• Reduce run-off into Lake Champlain.

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4. The ability to continue.Or in the words of
Costanza and Patten (1995)A sustainable system
is one which survives or persists.

• This is the most intuitive definition.
• Fits the English!
• This is the framework I will use from here on.

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This naturally leads to the following two
questions

• Which system should persist?
• For how long?

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For our purposes

• What system The farm or agroecosystem as an
  economic, social, and ecological entity.
• For how long As long as its existence is useful
  to and desired by the family that manages it and
  the community it serves.
• Note Not forever!

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Qualification The survival of the farm system
depends on the survival of any supersystem which
contains it. This includes the encompassing
watershed, global systems, and agroeconomic
systems.

• Therefore This definition precludes any negative
  impacts of the farm system upon the supersystems
  that contain and sustain it.

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The crafting of indicators

• According to Costanza and Patten(1995194),
  "What passes as definitions of sustainability are
  often predictions of actions taken today that one
  hopes will lead to sustainability."
• The same is true of indicators.
• Any present measurement is at best a prediction
  of sustainability.

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Elements of a good indicator

• System oriented
• Quantitative
• Predictive
• Stochastic
• Diagnostic (Hansen, 1996)
• Readily measurable (Rigby, 2001)

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Characterization of agricultural indicators.

• Reductionist vs. Holistic
• A reductionist indicator takes measurements of
  individual components within an agroecosystem.

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Rigby et al. (2001) seed sourcing, soil
fertility, pest/disease control, weed control,
and crop management.Bockstaller et al. (1997)
nitrogen and phosphorous flows, pesticide use,
irrigation, organic matter, energy, crop
diversity, soil structure, soil cover, and
ecological structures.
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Two types of reductionist indicatorsPrimary
predictors vs. Secondary predictors

• A primary predictor has an a priori concept of
  what sustainable measurements are for various
  components i.e. soil organic matter, nutrient
  flow rates, levels of crop diversity, etc. By
  comparing actual measurements to desired levels,
  a primary predictor predicts the likelihood of
  a system persisting.

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A secondary predictor examines practices. It also
has an a priori concept of what the components of
a sustainable system should look like, but it
focuses on the effect of various practices on
individual components.

• Practices -----effect-----Components-----effect---
  --Sustainability

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Why do I keep saying Predicted?Dont we know
the impacts of different practices?Dont we know
the characteristics of a sustainable system?For
simple systems, maybe. For complex, nonlinear
agroecosystems, probably not!
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Holistic Indicators

• A holistic indicator looks for measurements at
  the systems level that enable a prediction to be
  made regarding sustainability.
• Examples
• Non-negative time trend in output
• Total factor productivity
• Resilience
• Stability

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A brief overview ofProductivity as an Indicator
of Sustainability

• A farm or agroecosystem is first and foremost a
  system of production.
• A system of production has the goal of converting
  inputs into desirable outputs.
• Any definition of agricultural sustainability
  must ultimately focus on the ability to produce.

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Arguments against

• Correlates to a weak sustainability assumption.
• Might hide internal degradation until collapse is
  unavoidable.
• Ignores impacts on supersystem.
• Difficulty selecting units of measurements (more
  on this later).

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Arguments for

• Necessary condition for sustainability.
• Maximizes micro-level freedom with macro-level
  control.
• Recognizes the adaptive management abilities of
  the farmer.

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Following Conway, we want a productivitydefined
as Output/Inputthat is characterized by

• Appropriately high levels
• Stability over time
• Resilience when affected by perturbations

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Addressing the issue of commensurability-Three
measurements of productivity

• Biological (biomass)
• Economic (dollars)
• Ecological Economic (true costs)