Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for sustainability assessment in food sector. A systematic literature review on methods, indicators and tools

In the last decades, several studies have highlighted the significant impacts of the food sector. Therefore, enhancing sustainability within this sector has become of paramount importance. A crucial step towards achieving this goal involves the definition and implementation of effective sustainability metric and measurements. In this regard, the adoption of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods can be seen as one of the most suitable and promising approach to comprehensively capture the complex and broad-ranging effects of agricultural practices and food supply chains. In such context, a systematic review of the scientific literature on multi-criteria approaches and tools for measuring the sustainability of food supply chains (harvest and post-harvest stages) has been carried out, resulting in the selection and analysis of 42 articles. To delve into the selected articles, three main areas of focus have been identified. The first about MCDA methods and their features, revealing the most adopted methods for sustainability assessments of food supply chains. The second, focusing on the participatory approach, led to the definition of a stakeholder's engagement map, highlighting the typology of stakeholders involved, the reasons of their involvement and engagement methods. Lastly, the third focus is related to the analysis and classification of indicators adopted in each study and the sustainability dimensions to which they refer to. The results of the present review study provide a comprehensive overview of the essential aspects to be considered when developing a MCDA for sustainability assessment in the food sector, serving as a valuable resource for both scholars and practitioners.

Integrative Sustainability Analysis of European Pig Farms: Development of a Multi-Criteria Assessment Tool

Societal interest in all aspects of sustainability has increased. Therefore, pig farmers need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses in all dimensions of sustainability: economy, environment, social wellbeing, and animal health and welfare. Our aim was to describe and critically discuss the development of a sustainability assessment tool for pig farms and to evaluate its suitability by applying it to 63 European pig farms (13 breeding, 27 breeding-to-finishing, and 23 finishing farms). The multi-criteria assessment tool was developed in several steps (the selection and scaling of indicators and their aggregation and weighting) in order to summarise the indicators into subtheme and theme scores. The indicators contributing the most to the subtheme/theme scores were identified and discussed in order to evaluate the procedure of the development. For example, some indicators, such as Ecological compensation area, Fairness of prices, and Tail docking, for which farms were scored low, were also identified as “real world problems” in other studies. For other sustainability aspects with low performance, the threshold might have been set too ambitiously, e.g., for Number of sows per annual working unit. Furthermore, to analyse the suitability of the tool, we assessed the best and worst median theme scores (good and poor performances) for each dimension, as well as the variability of the performances of the farms within the themes. Some themes were found to be moderate, such as Pig comfort, Biodiversity, or Resilience, whereas others were found to be good, e.g., Water and the Human–animal relationship, as well as several themes of the social wellbeing dimension. Overall, the sustainability tool provides a comprehensive assessment of the sustainability of pig production. Furthermore, this publication contributes to both the theory (development of a robust sustainability tool) and the practice (provision of a tool to assess and benchmark the sustainability on farms). As a next step, a sensitivity analysis should be performed, and the tool should be applied for further development.

Ecolabeling to Improve Product Quality and Reduce Environmental Impact: A Choice Experiment With Vegetable Farmers in Thailand

The overuse of agricultural pesticides creates high costs to ecosystems and human health. One important reason for overuse is that markets in lower-income countries do not sufficiently differentiate agricultural produce based on quality aspects, making it difficult for consumers to select safe produce. Ecolabeling is a voluntary method of certification to gain consumer trust by differentiating produce based on environmental impact. Most studies have looked at consumer preferences for ecolabels, but the preferences of producers to adopt such labels have received much less attention. This paper aims to explore farmers' choice preference for ecolabels, safe pest management methods, human health, and the environment using a choice experiment. We sampled 303 vegetable farmers from three peri-urban provinces of Bangkok, Thailand, namely Ratchaburi, Nakhon Pathom and Pathum Thani provinces. Attributes of pest management methods and outcomes included farm ecosystems, human health, ecolabels, market opportunities, training in integrated pest management, and additional farm cost. A mixed logit model was employed to quantify the effect of each attribute on farmers' preference and marginal willingness to pay for each attribute. The data show high levels of pesticide use in vegetable production as farmers try to protect their investment from a wide range of pests and diseases. Alternative control methods are not widely available and are used in an ad-hoc manner to complement pesticides rather than substitute them. Farmers' willingness to pay for an ecolabel was 222 US$/ha/crop. However, ecolabeling had a lower priority than most other attributes. We conclude that there is a need to promote alternative pest management practices alongside ecolabels to reduce the environmental impact of vegetable farming in peri-urban areas in Thailand.

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Pig Farms in Selected European Countries: Combining LCA and Key Performance Indicators for Biodiversity Assessment

The aim of this study was to combine Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) assessment focusing on biodiversity in order to examine the environmental impacts of different pig farm types (13 breeding, 23 finishing and 27 breeding-to-finishing farms) in seven European countries. In addition, the relationship between environmental impacts and selected farm management characteristics was explored. Fossil energy depletion (FED), global warming (GWP), acidification (AP) as well as marine (MEP) and fresh water (FEP) eutrophication potential were assessed by an attributional LCA and expressed per kilogram body mass net sold (BMNS). In addition, the potential biodiversity performance of all crop-livestock farms within the sample (n = 56) was evaluated with a KPI assessment of biodiversity-related field management characteristics. We found no relationship between LCA results and biodiversity scores (KPI). LCA and biodiversity performance varied more within than across farm types (breeding, finishing, breeding-to-finishing). For example, the GWP expressed per kg BMNS of the breeding unit of breeding-to-finishing farms was on average (median) 2.77 (range: 1.40–4.78) and of breeding farms 2.57 (range: 1.91–3.23) kg CO2-eq. The average (median) biodiversity theme score for breeding farms was 51% (range: 36–70%), for breeding-to-finishing farms 38% (range: 30–68%) and for finishing farms 43% (range: 28–67%). Several farm management characteristics (e.g., FCR, productivity, proportion of solid manure) correlated with all/some LCA results. Biodiversity performance depended especially on KPIs related to ecological focus areas, fertiliser management and GMO crops. The large range regarding environmental performance in both LCA and KPI assessment across farm types indicates that farm-specific improvement measures should be implemented to enhance overall environmental sustainability on farm. In conclusion, combining LCA with KPI assessment provides a more comprehensive environmental impact assessment of pig farms.