A Comparative View of Agri-Environmental Indicators and Stakeholders’ Assessment of Their Quality

Ionuț-Alexandru Spânu, Alexandru Ozunu, Dacinia Crina Petrescu and Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag
Additional contact information
Ionuț-Alexandru Spânu: Research Institute for Sustainability and Disaster Management Based on High Performance Computing, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Babeș-Bolyai University, 30 Fantanele Street, 400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Alexandru Ozunu: Research Institute for Sustainability and Disaster Management Based on High Performance Computing, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Babeș-Bolyai University, 30 Fantanele Street, 400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Dacinia Crina Petrescu: Research Institute for Sustainability and Disaster Management Based on High Performance Computing, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Babeș-Bolyai University, 30 Fantanele Street, 400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag: Research Institute for Sustainability and Disaster Management Based on High Performance Computing, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering, Babeș-Bolyai University, 30 Fantanele Street, 400294 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: The degree to which economic goals have been prioritized over environmental and social objectives has caused dissatisfaction with conventional agricultural practices and stimulated the adoption of sustainable farming methods. One way to consider the multidimensionality of sustainable agriculture is to refer to indicators, more precisely, to agri-environmental indicators (AEIs). This study provides a comparative overview of the 28 AEIs of the European Union (EU) and those of the OECD and FAO, additionally revealing how these 28 indicators are reflected in the literature regarding agri-environmental indicators. Furthermore, since much of human behavior is influenced by perceptions, it was critical to reveal the stakeholders’ assessment of the 28 AEIs based on four criteria (“Availability”, “Relevance”, “Target-oriented”, and “Operational simplicity”). The stakeholders’ opinions of the 28 AEIs were assessed using the evaluation matrix. The highest overall evaluation considering the four criteria was received by “Irrigation” and “Soil quality indicators”. The study concludes that tripartite cooperation between stakeholders—farmers, agri-environmental researchers, and policymakers—is needed to successfully implement the AEIs of the EU.

Keywords: indicators; EUROSTAT; FAO; OECD; farmers; perceptions; agricultural system; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/4/490/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/12/4/490/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:12:y:2022:i:4:p:490-:d:784030

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().