A guide for choosing the most appropriate method for multi-criteria assessment of agricultural systems according to decision-makers’ expectations

Autor: Matthieu Carof, Anne Aveline, Bruno Colomb
Přispěvatelé: Sol Agro et hydrosystème Spatialisation (SAS), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-AGROCAMPUS OUEST, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), Université européenne de Bretagne - European University of Brittany (UEB), Agrosystèmes Cultivés et Herbagers (ARCHE), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-École nationale supérieure agronomique de Toulouse [ENSAT]-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP), Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées-Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées, Grp ESA, LEVA, French MAAP - DGER (Ministere de l'Alimentation, de l'Agriculture et de la Peche - Direction Generale de l'Enseignement et de la Recherche) under the CASDAR (Compte d'Affectation Speciale Developpement Agricole et Rural) via the Project RotAB, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse-Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) (Toulouse INP)
Rok vydání: 2013
Předmět:
Zdroj: Agricultural Systems
Agricultural Systems, Elsevier Masson, 2013, 115, pp.51-62. ⟨10.1016/j.agsy.2012.09.011⟩
ISSN: 0308-521X
DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2012.09.011
Popis: Modern agriculture must meet new challenges such as production of healthy food, adaptation to climate change, protection of natural resources, and conservation of landscape. These challenges require changes in current agricultural systems and therefore, environmentally-friendly agricultural systems must be designed and their sustainability assessed. Over the past several years, various methods have been developed for making such assessments (e.g. the Balancing and Ranking Method, MEACROS, MODAM, the modelling framework of Pacini et al., ROTAT + Farm Images, MASC, and ROTOR) but few studies put forward simple solutions for selecting one method over another. In this paper, we propose a simple guide to distinguish methods one from another. Categories of the guide include the type of systems to assess, the spatial and temporal scales at which systems are assessed, the dimensions of sustainability for which systems are assessed, the type of visualisation for comparing options, the target users, and the ability to generate alternative systems. The guide was developed and tested with a group of farm advisors involved in a three-year project called RotAB, which aimed to assess the sustainability of organic arable farming systems: the advisors looked for a method for sustainability assessment of cropping systems. We presented seven recent assessment methods as well as the guide to advisors. The guide's key points allowed them to clearly express their requirements: the method they looked for had to evaluate cropping systems and helped advisors to propose new ones; it had to evaluate multiple sustainability criteria that are easily understandable by farmers; indicators had to be scientifically based, without the need for many input data; the method had to be easy to use and produced graphical output that can be discussed with farmers. Finally, the guide helped advisors to choose one of the seven methods (in that case they chose MASC). This guide can help decision-makers distinguish assessment tools from one another using simple categories and choose the one best adapted to their expectations. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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