Evaluating the Sustainability of Agriculture

Sustainability is an important issue in the development debate but there is little consensus regarding what sustainable development really means and how its attainment can be evaluated. This book attempts to address the question of how the sustainability of agriculture could be assessed; the idea is then applied and analyzed in the case of a river watershed in Costa Rica. The sustainability of agriculture is described by indicators at the plot-, farm- and watershed-level. Reference values are determined which allow the measurement of changes in the indicator values caused by current land use. Multivariate statistical procedures and the assessment of frontier production functions for the principal crops are the main instruments of the empirical analysis. Furthermore, economic social and environmental indicators are aggregated to a «sustainability index» at the farm level in order to allow for comparison between farms. Policy options and possible interventions for the improvement of sustainability are then discussed and the study concludes with the lessons learned and suggestions for further research.

Autorentext

The Author: Sabine Müller was born in Neunkirchen, Germany, in 1959. She studied Agriculture and Agricultural Economics at the Universities of Bonn and Kiel and graduated in 1985. The author worked as a consultant and project coordinator for national and international development agencies in Africa and Latin America. In 1997, she received her Doctorate in Agricultural Economics at the University of Kiel. Sabine Müller is working currently as project coordinator in a joint development project of the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries of Uruguay (MGAP) in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Inhalt

Contents: Key Concepts and Terminology of Sustainable Development and Sustainable Agriculture - Derivation of Sustainability Indicators of a Watershed in Costa Rica - Empirical Investigations of the Indicators - Evaluation of Sustainability - The Need for Aggregation of Indicators - Results and Implications for Evaluation and Policy Design.