BEYOND PRODUCTIVITY: MULTIPLE CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE

PERFORMANCE OF AGRICULTURE SYSTEMSKarlheinz Knickel

Universidade de Évora / ICAAM - Instituto de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais Mediterrânicas

Some basic considerations

■ Contemporary societal demands regarding agriculture go far beyond (low-cost) (food) production.

■ Key (farm) performance parameters used in the past have lost much of their credentials■ Intensive agricultural production systems are hardly resilient as they depend excessively on

external inputs (nutrients, finance, etc.) and have a low buffer capacity. ■ The same systems tend to be heavily affected by changes in market prices and have a low

adaptive capacity, e.g. due to a high level of capital investment and debt■ A diversity of farm development trajectories can be observed in practice –we need to recognise

this diversity as an asset and a source of inspiration■ There is an enormous number of smaller farms with particular socio-economic situations,

strategies and needs – they must not be overlooked■ A substantial paradigm shift is needed regarding agricultural modernisation (OECD

Environmental Outlook, Rise Foundation, Forum for the Future of Agriculture … Janez Potočnik)

J D van der Ploeg (2003) The virtual farmer

From data to information to knowledge■ 'Big data' – a rapidly increasing amount of data is captured by sensors,

satellites, cameras, pedometers and many other devices. ■ Farms are becoming wired and data-intensive■ The main challenge is to integrate the data and to make them meaningful

– To develop (agronomic and farm management) models that interpret the data and generate actionable advise in decision support

– Food chains might become much more data-driven … value chain integration

■ New initiatives for data sharing, e.g. in the US around 'prescriptive farming', are based on new business models and governance structures– Potential risks and impacts on agricultural structures

Economic parameters

■ Given economic conditions do not favour resource-efficient, resilient, low-carbon systems and practices

■ The current one-sided emphasis on economic performance, competitiveness and growth is counterproductive

■ New approaches for assessing farms’ performance need to extend beyond the current narrow focus on production functions, unit costs, and economic performance

■ Lock-ins and path dependency are major issues■ Performance measures need to be able to assess the effectiveness of

different scales, types and styles of farming in addressing wider societal demands

Socio-economic parameters and cohesion■ Many highly rationalised, capital-intensive 'modern' farms are not

really resilient – not in financial and resource use terms (e.g. DK), and not in social terms (e.g. IE)

■ Most farmers are also concerned with non-economic parameters– social and community well-being – autonomy – at the level of the farm and at community/regional

level– quality of life, work-life-balance– quality of the natural environment

■ On a societal level, fair trade, cooperation, networks, cohesion are becoming more important

Resource use efficiency

■ Resource-intensity of industrialised production systems is problematic– High energy inputs– GHG emissions– Water use

■ Need to reconfigure the farming system to take full advantage of natural resources and ecosystem services– Design and management of sustainable agroecosystems– Crop-livestock integration, agro-forestry, permaculture, …

SAFA tool(FAO, 2014)

• SAFA is a holistic global framework for the assessment of sustainability along food and agriculture value chains

• SAFA is intended primarily for self-evaluation and internal communication about sustainability goals and performance

More integrated perspectives needed

The "bio-based economy"

Ecosystem services

Consumer, civil society

Agri-food systems

Perspective matters more than anything else■ time dimension – short term goals vs. longer-term outlook■ spatial dimension – field and farm vs.

community/landscape/watershed level■ reference system – business/farm household vs. societal/whole

economy perspective

More work needed on different perspectives and how they can be reconciled, and on more integrative systems-based analyses

Multi-perspectival reflexive analyses needed

Summary of key points

■ Performance? New orientations and pathways means new assessment methods

■ We need an acknowledgment of the diversity of pathways, and of territory and community as reference systems (going beyond field and farm level)

■ Fostering learning processes and self-evaluation should be a primary goal … experimentation, learning and adaptation, reflexive governance

■ A Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy (KBBE) is much more than biotechnology, bioenergy and industry-led or industry-scale processes– 'intelligent', i.e. knowledge-intensive natural resource efficient

production systems, eco-functional intensification, resilient agricultural systems and adaptive management approaches

Contact / cooperation

Karlheinz Knickel■ karlheinz.Knickel@gmail.com■ LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/kknickel■ Frankfurt/M. – Évora – Trondheim

■ FP7 ERA-NET project RETHINK (just concluded): http://www.rethink-net.eu/

■ H2020 SALSA project (on-going): http://www.salsa.uevora.pt/