Exploring farmers’ perceptions of social sustainability

Rita Saleh () and Melf-Hinrich Ehlers
Additional contact information
Rita Saleh: Agroscope, Socio-Economics Group, Tänikon 1
Melf-Hinrich Ehlers: Agroscope, Socio-Economics Group, Tänikon 1

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2025, vol. 27, issue 3, No 30, 6396 pages

Abstract: Abstract In the farming sector, there is growing awareness of the importance of the social dimension of sustainability and its complex links to environmental and economic sustainability. However, social sustainability is generally the least understood dimension of sustainability. Despite efforts to empirically capture social sustainability, it remains unclear how it is relevant to individual farms and how it depends on their contexts. To generate a comprehensive and contextual understanding of social sustainability, we adopted a mixed-methods approach. We first conducted qualitative interviews with farm managers, which then informed the development of a survey focused on farmers’ perceptions and experiences of social sustainability at their farms. In total, 354 Swiss farm managers completed our online survey. First, we identified social aspects relevant to farmers and compared them across the three main production types in Switzerland (dairy, crop, and other livestock production). Second, we assessed farmers’ perceptions and experiences of social sustainability and the relationship of these perceptions and experiences with farmer identity (i.e., productivist, conservative, passionate caretaker, and forward-looking). The findings reveal differences in the meaning and importance of social sustainability across production types. Farmer identity appears to influence the experience of social sustainability at farms, with forward-looking farmers reporting better experiences of social sustainability than other farmers. The findings can inform the development and implementation of social sustainability indicators for farms and tailored interventions based on farm contexts and farmer characteristics.

Keywords: Agriculture; Social sustainability; Farmer perceptions; Farm contexts; Farmer identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-023-04140-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:endesu:v:27:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s10668-023-04140-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-023-04140-w

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().