The determining factors of farm sustainability in a context of growing agricultural intensification

Mariem Baccar, Ahmed Bouaziz (), Patrick Dugué, Mohamed Gafsi () and Pierre-Yves Le Gal
Additional contact information
Ahmed Bouaziz: Civil Engineering Research Laboratory - BISKRA - Université Mohamed Khider de Biskra
Patrick Dugué: UMR Innovation - Innovation et Développement dans l'Agriculture et l'Alimentation - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - Montpellier SupAgro - Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques - Montpellier SupAgro - Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier
Mohamed Gafsi: LISST - Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - UT - Université de Toulouse - ENSFEA - École Nationale Supérieure de Formation de l'Enseignement Agricole de Toulouse-Auzeville - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INP - PURPAN - Ecole d'Ingénieurs de Purpan - Toulouse INP - Institut National Polytechnique (Toulouse) - UT - Université de Toulouse
Pierre-Yves Le Gal: CITERES - Cités, Territoires, Environnement et Sociétés - UT - Université de Tours - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: Farms are evolving in a political and social environment concerned with the three dimensions – environmental, social, and economic – of sustainable farming. This study analyses the key factors determining the sustainability of 36 farms reflecting the diverse farming systems found on the Saïs Plain in Morocco, where an intensification dynamic encouraged by the government is combined with increasingly constrained access to irrigation water and fluctuating agricultural commodity prices. The sustainability of each farm was assessed using the Indicateurs de Durabilité des Exploitations Agricoles/Farm Sustainability Indicators method. A multivariate statistical analysis was conducted to analyze and group the case farms and assess the scores of each component of sustainability. Results show that agroecological sustainability of a farm depends on its autonomy in using resources and the extent to which its production system is diversified. Farm structure and the choice of production system affect economic sustainability. The farmers' preferences and social values influence socio-territorial sustainability. No farm is able to obtain a high total sustainability value (max 55/100), with the economic dimension varying in opposite directions to the agroecological and socio-territorial dimensions. The implications of the choice of the assessment method on the sustainability results are discussed, as are the consequences of agricultural policies on the farms' sustainability.

Keywords: Sustainability evaluation; Morocco; specialization; diversification; IDEA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-07-19
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Published in Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 2018, 43 (4), pp.386-408. ⟨10.1080/21683565.2018.1489934⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02076164

DOI: 10.1080/21683565.2018.1489934

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