The environmental sustainability of national cropping systems: Fromassessment to policy impact evaluation

• N. Passeri ; E. Blasib ^[1] ; S. Franco ^[1] ; A. Martella ; B. Pancino ^[1] ; C. Cicatiello ^[1]
  1. [1] Tuscia University

     Tuscia University

     Viterbo, Italia

     
• Localización: Land use policy: The International Journal Covering All Aspects of Land Use, ISSN 0264-8377, ISSN-e 1873-5754, Nº. 57, 2016, págs. 305-312
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The European political framework of the last decade aims to drive agriculture towards economic andenvironmental sustainability. Thus, European institutions have paid great attention to environmentalimpact assessment and to the definition of a complex indicator capable of restoring the multidimensionalnature of environmental sustainability.In this work, a possible methodology for assessing the environmental sustainability of Europeannational cropping systems by a synthetic indicator is provided. More specifically, the environmentalimpact of agriculture is assessed through a synthetic indicator, whose definition is based on a methodolog-ical improvement of the ecological footprint approach, which quantifies the balance between exploitationand availability of natural resources used in agriculture.The analysis shows how national cropping systems can contribute to Europe’s environmental impactthrough agriculture. To assess an eventual relationship between agriculture’s environmental performanceand the ability to support more sustainable agriculture at the national level, the results are then comparedwith the subsidies for agro-environmental measures provided by the second pillar of the CAP. In addition,the synthetic indicator chosen for the study, giving the possibility of quantifying the dynamic of theenvironmental impact of agriculture between two different periods, permits the analysis of the possiblecauses that may have generated the observed changes.The implications of this approach should stimulate new reflections on the significance of the ecologicalrelationships embodied into agricultural production and the environmental role of farmers