ARE FAMILY FARMS’ SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY CONCERNS ADDRESSED BY ASSESSMENT TOOLS? A LITERATURE REVIEW AND COVERAGE CHECK

Abstract:

The study focuses on the social dimension of farm sustainability in Switzerland. The degree to which existing farm sustainability assessment tools captured what farmers perceived as important regarding farm social sustainability was investigated. First, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify themes that farmers are concerned with. Then, “sub-themes” of relevant social sustainability themes were further deduced. Six farm sustainability assessment tools (SALCAsustain, SMART, RISE, IDEA4, MOTIFS, and PGTool) were screened and categorised according to whether they (a) fully or partly included each identified sub-theme or (b) included a sub-theme explicitly or by a related aspect. It was found that among the selected tools, SMART covered the most sub-themes fully and explicitly (11 out of 19). SALCAsustain, RISE, and IDEA4 ranked similar with 8, 7, and 7 sub-themes addressed fully and explicitly. MOTIFS and PGTool captured fully and explicitly only 1 sub-theme each. Hence, it was concluded that the farm sustainability assessment tools available to Swiss farmers reflect the concerns of farmers to different degrees.

Keywords: Social sustainability, Agriculture, Sustainability assessment tool, Farmers’ concerns