Measuring Short Food Supply Chain Sustainability: A Selection of Attributes and Indicators through a Qualitative Approach

Patrizia Borsotto, Roberto Cagliero, Francesca Giarè (), Giorgia Giordani, Rita Iacono, Ilenia Manetti and Roberta Sardone
Additional contact information
Patrizia Borsotto: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy
Roberto Cagliero: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy
Francesca Giarè: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy
Giorgia Giordani: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Food and Nutrition, Via Ardeatina 546, 00178 Rome, Italy
Rita Iacono: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy
Ilenia Manetti: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy
Roberta Sardone: Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy, Via Barberini 36, 00187 Rome, Italy

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: Short food supply chains (SFSCs) are one of the most direct approaches to more directly connecting consumers with producers. The scaling-up of SFSCs is often challenged by critical issues which can be overcome with identification of the most sustainable, replicable schemes. This paper presents the results of a participatory analysis conducted within the agroBRIDGES H2020 project, with the aim of defining a list of economic, social, and environmental attributes and indicators to assess the sustainability of SFSCs and set up a decision-making tool to support producers in self-assessing their sustainability level and choosing the most appropriate business model (BM) from those identified within the project. The proposed framework was based on a literature review and validated using co-creation exercises (Delphi rounds and focus groups) with relevant European stakeholders. A final set of 47 indicators was identified, and their potential for use in assessing the sustainability level of various BMs was also validated. Early results highlighted three main issues: indicator calculation feasibility, business model categorization, and the simplicity of the framework for sustainability self-assessment. Some recommendations are made, including the importance of using a participatory process in building an evaluation framework on SFSC sustainability and the necessity of its adaptation to territorial contexts and needs.

Keywords: short supply chains; producers; sustainability; participatory methods; co-creation exercise; farmers (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/3/646/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/3/646/ (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:13:y:2023:i:3:p:646-:d:1092670

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 ().