Methods and Procedures for Building Sustainable Farming Systems

This book shows how the method of sustainability assessment plays a key role in choosing the best agricultural productive mode, and guides the reader through the process of selection. Includes case studies from Portugal, Canada, Argentina and Lebanon.

Contributions from 60 authors in 12 countries covering both assessment of sustainability and ways of building sustainable farming systems Includes many real-life examples of the application of sustainability assessment methodologies Identifies a range of key methods for supporting decision making on suitable sustainable agricultural projects

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This urgent publication surveys the latest research and methodologies combining efficiency in agricultural food production with sustainability in the same systems. Growing pressures on food production seem contrapuntal to the ever-stronger imperatives of sustainability. How can agriculture balance successes in both productivity and ecology? Sustainability is a dynamic concept, seeking to achieve a balancein space and timeof environmental, economic and social factors. Thus, farming systems are faced with contradictory demands for success: economic performance and social equity have to be maximized, while the environment and its natural resources need to be protected.

Showing how the method of sustainability assessment plays a key role in choosing the best agricultural productive mode, this book guides the reader through the process of selecting, from among the various approaches for building farming systems, the method of decision-making that will result in the most appropriate outcome, given the context. Case studies hail from polities as diverse as Portugal and Canada, Argentina and Lebanon. The work thus offers a valuable critical survey of the assessment methods that account for sustainability and economics, and which have developed considerably in the last two decades. The heterogeneous approaches covered here make this volume appropriate for consultation in a wide variety of social, political and geographical contexts.

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Acknowledgments.- Preface.-1. The Needs for Building Sustainable Farming Systems: Issues and Scope.- Part I European Context for Sustainability Assessment Of Farming Systems.-2. Agricultural and Environmental Policies in the European Union.-3. Approaches for Sustainable Farming Systems Assessment.- Part II Multiple Aspects to Develop Methodologies for Sustainability Assessment of Farming Systems.-4. Normative, Systemic and Procedural Aspects: A Review of Indicator-Based Sustainability Assessments in Agriculture.-5. Assessing the Sustainability of Activity Systems to Support Households' Farming Projects.-6. Multilevel and Multi-User Sustainability Assessment of Farming Systems.-Part III Application of Methodologies for Sustainability Assessment of Farming Systems in Real Contexts.-8. Learning and Experimentation Strategy (LES). Outline of a Method to Develop Sustainable Livestock Production Systems.-8. Factors Affecting the Implementation of Measures for Improving Sustainability on Farms Following the Rise Sustainability Evaluation.-9. A Multi-Attribute Decision Method for Assessing the Overall Sustainability of Crop Protection Strategies: A Case Study Based on Apple Production in Europe.- Part IV Sustainability Assessment in Organic and Multifunctional Systems.-10. Are Organic Suckler Cattle Farming Systems More Sustainable Than Conventional Systems? Productive, Environmental and Economic Performances Assessments: A Model-Based Study.-11. Assessing Multifunctionality in Relation to Resource Use A Holistic Approach to Measure Efficiency, Developed by Participatory Research.-12. Indicator-Based Method for Assessing Organic Farming Sustainability.- Part V Decision Support Methods for Sustainable Farming Systems.-13. X-Farm: Modelling Sustainable Farming Systems.-14. Ecological-Economic Modelling for Farming Systems Of Montemuro Mountain (Portugal).-15. Evaluating Socio-Economic and Environmental Sustainability ofthe Sheep Farming Activity in Greece: A Whole Farm Mathematical Programming Approach.- Part VI Sustainability Assessment in Non-European Farming Systems.-16. Method for the Evaluation of Farm Sustainability in Quebec, Canada: The Social Aspect.-17. Adapting a European Sustainability Model to a Local Context in Semi-Arid Areas of Lebanon.-18. Tendency of Production Decisions of the Farmers of the Southeast Pampa Region in Argentina Under Uncertainty Conditions.- Part VII Final Considerations.- 19. Methodologies for Building Sustainable Farming Systems: The Main Critical Points and Questions.