Comparison of Methods to Assess Agricultural Sustainability

Abstract

Methods for agricultural sustainability assessment require the management of a wide variety of information types, parameters and uncertainties. Nevertheless, many methodologies have been developed and applied for agricultural sustainability assessment. Here the following holistic methods were compared: the Response-Inducing Sustainability Evaluation model (RISE), Sustainability Assessment of Farming and the Environment (SAFE), the IDEA method (Indicateurs de Durabilite des Exploitations Agricoles or Farm Sustainability Indicators), Monitoring Tool for Integrated Farm Sustainability (MOTIFS), Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), Integrated assessment of agricultural systems, a component-based framework for the European Union (SEAMLESS), the MESMIS program, and acronym for Indicator-based Sustainability Assessment Framework, and Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA). The effectiveness of the methodologies was compared in terms of scientific soundness, feasibility, utility, influence, spatial applicability and adaptability. In terms of effectiveness, the performance of RISE is the best, but when scientific soundness issues are considered, MCDA-based assessment is the preferred choice. All the methodologies have some specificity based on how they were created and their spatial applicability.