Farm level environmental indicators; are they useful? An overview of Green Accounting Systems for European farms

Green accounts or Input-Output Accounting systems (IOA) have been developed in countries with intensive agricultural production to facilitate voluntary improvements in farm environmental performance. There is a need for an overview of indicators used and a review of results and experiences reported. Ten IOA systems covering the topics of the farm's use of nutrients, pesticides and energy were selected from a survey of 55 systems and compared in this paper. The approaches and indicators used vary from systems based on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) to accounts based systems that use physical input-output units. Many IOA systems use farm gate nutrient balances, pesticide use per ha and energy use per kg product. These indicators are easy to calculate but the resulting value needs separate interpretation for the farmer. Other systems include modelled emissions and rate the yearly farm results using closed scales, which allows for easy interpretation but builds on implicit normative assumptions of best practices. Participating farmers were most often reported to be motivated for the use of IOA but empirical evidence of improved environmental farm performance was scarce. IOA systems should be linked with production planning tools used by the advisory services. Farmers and advisors needs better reference values to evaluate the indicator levels (environmental performance) on the individual farm possibly based on analysis of a larger number of farms. The statistical properties of IOA indicators need to be researched regarding: (1) The relation between changed management practice and changes in indicator values on a given farm over a period of time. (2) The relative importance of systematic vs. coincidental differences in environmental performance of a set of farms. It is concluded that IOA systems could become effective tools for agri-environmental improvement of European farms given further development and standardisation

Moviendo visiones de mundo : reformando ciencias, políticas y prácticas para el desarrollo endógeno sustentable

Desde Latinoamérica, a lo largo de 10 años de ejecución del Programa compas , hemos implementado experiencias de desarrollo, basados en un enfoque endógeno y de sustentabilidad. La base de dicho enfoque son las cosmovisiones locales de los pueblos indígenas y campesinos quechuas, aymaras, mayas y mapuches que consideran que las acciones de desarrollo deben estar enmarcadas en la visión ritual animista del entorno natural, la reciprocidad como mecanismo de relacionamiento social y la producción orientada por el equilibrio del ecosistema. Bajo este enfoque de desarrollo endógeno sustentable, hemos evidenciado que es necesario ampliar el radio de incidencia y debate a otros ámbitos fuera del marco estricto del desarrollo rural, e interpelar los centros de investigación, formación y generación de ciencia y conocimiento, que a la fecha siguen conduciéndose bajo el enfoque convencional dominante neopositivista