A Farm-Based Indicator of Agricultural Sustainability Farmers as Adaptive Managers of Natural capital

"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., The Real Dirt: Farmers Tell About Organic and Low-Input Practices in the Northeast, Northeast Organic Farmers Association.)

To paraphrase Rodale: Sustainability is like being pregnant—either you are or you aren’t.

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.

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).

Characterizations of agricultural sustainability Taken from: Hansen, J.W., Is Agricultural Sustainability a Useful Concept? Agricultural Systems, 50: Four frameworks for defining sustainability. Each framework leads naturally to methods of measurement.

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.

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

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.

Can lead to circular reasoning: Sustainable farms are those which adopt the practices used by sustainable farms. This would readily imply that organic certification is a sufficient condition for sustainability.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This naturally leads to the following two questions: Which system should persist? For how long?

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!

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.

The crafting of indicators: According to Costanza and Patten(1995:194), "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.

Elements of a good indicator: System oriented Quantitative Predictive Stochastic Diagnostic (Hansen, 1996) Readily measurable (Rigby, 2001)

Characterization of agricultural indicators. 1.Reductionist vs. Holistic A reductionist indicator takes measurements of individual components within an agroecosystem.

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.

Two types of reductionist indicators: Primary 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.

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

Why do I keep saying “Predicted”? Don’t we know the impacts of different practices? Don’t we know the characteristics of a sustainable system? For simple systems, maybe. For complex, nonlinear agroecosystems, probably not!

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

A brief overview of Productivity 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.

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).

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

Following Conway, we want a productivity— defined as Output/Input—that is characterized by: Appropriately high levels Stability over time Resilience when affected by perturbations

Addressing the issue of commensurability- Three measurements of productivity: Biological (biomass) Economic (dollars) Ecological Economic (true costs)