Indicators of sustainable development for agriculture

• Main Author: Volovyk, I.A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Інститут геотехнічної механіки імені М.С. Полякова НАН України 2015
• Series: Геотехнічна механіка
• Online Access: http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/138045

Sustainability in agriculture is a complex concept and there are a lot of methods and scholars for its measuring. Advantages and disadvantages of different estimation system were considered and some of indicators were analyzed. “Feed-back” approach was offered to improve the methods of sustainability estimation. The main difficulty in measuring and monitoring of agricultural sustainability is that it is a rather dynamic than a static concept with long-term correlation. There are different systems of and approaches for monitoring starting from high level international organizations (The World Bank, UN, OECD etc.), regional and state systems, and variety of researches by the topic. But the main critical issues of them are that indicators of sustainability are not considered in pair resource-result. The “feedback” approach was proposed by reviewing principles of sustainable development estimation in agriculture. A key idea of the “feedback” approach is to define a correlation between recourses and effects. The system of indicators helps estimating the correlation in the boxes Financial and Material Resources, Human Resources, Environmental Resources and appropriate effects. Some indicators were estimated and monitored using official database, but there is a lack of information in environmental and social part of estimation system. Therefore, to give politicians and researches a background for decision-making on agrarian policy the system of state statistic can be improved by adding some sustainable development indicators in agriculture.