IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i10p3820-d177376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability Assessment of Organic Vegetable Production Using a Qualitative Multi-Attribute Model

Author

Listed:
  • Ileana Iocola

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Agricoltura Ambiente (CREA-AA), Via della Navicella 2-4, 00184 Roma (RM), Italy)

  • Gabriele Campanelli

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Orticoltura e Florovivaismo (CREA-OF), Via Salaria 1, 63030 Monsapolo del Tronto (AP), Italy)

  • Mariangela Diacono

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Agricoltura Ambiente (CREA-AA), Via Celso Ulpiani 5, 70125 Bari (BA), Italy)

  • Fabrizio Leteo

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Orticoltura e Florovivaismo (CREA-OF), Via Salaria 1, 63030 Monsapolo del Tronto (AP), Italy)

  • Francesco Montemurro

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Orticoltura e Florovivaismo (CREA-OF), Via Salaria 1, 63030 Monsapolo del Tronto (AP), Italy)

  • Alessandro Persiani

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Agricoltura Ambiente (CREA-AA), Via Celso Ulpiani 5, 70125 Bari (BA), Italy)

  • Stefano Canali

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e L’analisi Dell’economia Agraria, Centro di Ricerca Agricoltura Ambiente (CREA-AA), Via della Navicella 2-4, 00184 Roma (RM), Italy)

Abstract

Organic agriculture is perceived as environmentally sustainable, but, under its umbrella, different production systems exist ranging from simplified organic productions to well diversified systems with a full implementation of agro-ecological approaches. Among several developed tools for agriculture sustainability assessment, multi-criteria models are increasingly gaining importance. In this study, we evaluated the use of the multi-criteria DEXi-BIOrt tool, coupled with data from long-term experiments, for the sustainability assessment of different organic vegetable production scenarios. These scenarios were applied in two Italian areas: the Adriatic coast of Marche Region and the Metaponto plan of Basilicata Region. Despite the presence of some critical issues, DEXI-BIOrt proved to be a valid tool for the sustainability evaluation of organic vegetable productions. In both areas, the most sustainable scenarios resulted the well diversified organic systems characterized by proper rotations, inclusion of agro-ecological service crops, cultivation of local and different cultivars, and presence of short supply chain mechanisms. Conversely, the implementation of the simplified organic substitution scenarios does not guarantee a suitable level of sustainability. The findings of this study could support decision makers in the implementation of appropriate measures for enhancing organic production sustainability in the framework of post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Ileana Iocola & Gabriele Campanelli & Mariangela Diacono & Fabrizio Leteo & Francesco Montemurro & Alessandro Persiani & Stefano Canali, 2018. "Sustainability Assessment of Organic Vegetable Production Using a Qualitative Multi-Attribute Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-20, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3820-:d:177376
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3820/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3820/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bockstaller, C. & Girardin, P., 2003. "How to validate environmental indicators," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 639-653, May.
    2. Giuseppe Munda, 2016. "Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis and Sustainable Development," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Salvatore Greco & Matthias Ehrgott & José Rui Figueira (ed.), Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis, edition 2, chapter 0, pages 1235-1267, Springer.
    3. Canali, Stefano & Diacono, Mariangela & Campanelli, Gabriele & Montemurro, Francesco, 2015. "Organic No-Till with Roller Crimpers: Agro-ecosystem Services and Applications in Organic Mediterranean Vegetable Productions," Sustainable Agriculture Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 4(3 Special).
    4. JosÉ Figueira & Salvatore Greco & Matthias Ehrogott, 2005. "Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis: State of the Art Surveys," International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Springer, number 978-0-387-23081-8, January.
    5. Denis Bouyssou & Thierry Marchant & Marc Pirlot & Alexis Tsoukiàs & Philippe Vincke, 2006. "Evaluation and Decision Models with Multiple Criteria," International Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Springer, number 978-0-387-31099-2, March.
    6. Mouron, Patrik & Heijne, Bart & Naef, Andreas & Strassemeyer, Jörn & Hayer, Frank & Avilla, Jesus & Alaphilippe, Aude & Höhn, Heinrich & Hernandez, José & Mack, Gabriele & Gaillard, Gérard & Solé, Joa, 2012. "Sustainability assessment of crop protection systems: SustainOS methodology and its application for apple orchards," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-15.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Salvatore Squatrito & Elena Arena & Rosa Palmeri & Biagio Fallico, 2020. "Public and Private Standards in Crop Production: Their Role in Ensuring Safety and Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Bilgesu Bayir & Aurélie Charles & Aicha Sekhari & Yacine Ouzrout, 2022. "Issues and Challenges in Short Food Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, March.
    3. Iulia Sorina Dan & Ionel Mugurel Jitea, 2023. "Barriers and Levers in the Development of the Value Chain of Organic Vegetables in Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-17, August.
    4. Ioan Sebastian Brumă & Simona-Roxana Ulman & Cristina Cautisanu & Lucian Tanasă & Gabriel Vasile Hoha, 2021. "Sustainability in the Case of Small Vegetable Farmers: A Matrix Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-32, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Javier Rodrigo-Ilarri & Claudia P. Romero & María-Elena Rodrigo-Clavero, 2020. "Land Use/Land Cover Assessment over Time Using a New Weighted Environmental Index (WEI) Based on an Object-Oriented Model and GIS Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-22, December.
    2. Rocío Cóndor & Antonino Scarelli & Riccardo Valentini, 2011. "Multicriteria Decision Aid to support Multilateral Environmental Agreements in assessing international forestry projects," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 117-137, May.
    3. Tsoukias, Alexis, 2008. "From decision theory to decision aiding methodology," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 138-161, May.
    4. Berjawi, A.E.H. & Walker, S.L. & Patsios, C. & Hosseini, S.H.R., 2021. "An evaluation framework for future integrated energy systems: A whole energy systems approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    5. Greco, Salvatore & Kadzinski, Milosz & Mousseau, Vincent & Slowinski, Roman, 2011. "ELECTREGKMS: Robust ordinal regression for outranking methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(1), pages 118-135, October.
    6. De Brucker, Klaas & Macharis, Cathy & Verbeke, Alain, 2013. "Multi-criteria analysis and the resolution of sustainable development dilemmas: A stakeholder management approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 224(1), pages 122-131.
    7. Zsuzsanna Katalin Szabo & Zsombor Szádoczki & Sándor Bozóki & Gabriela C. Stănciulescu & Dalma Szabo, 2021. "An Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach for Prioritisation of Strategic Objectives of Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-26, February.
    8. Henriques, C. Oliveira & Antunes, C. Henggeler, 2012. "Interactions of economic growth, energy consumption and the environment in the context of the crisis – A study with uncertain data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 415-422.
    9. Greco, Salvatore & Ishizaka, Alessio & Tasiou, Menelaos & Torrisi, Gianpiero, 2019. "Sigma-Mu efficiency analysis: A methodology for evaluating units through composite indicators," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 278(3), pages 942-960.
    10. Francis Marleau Donais & Irène Abi-Zeid & E. Owen D. Waygood & Roxane Lavoie, 2019. "A review of cost–benefit analysis and multicriteria decision analysis from the perspective of sustainable transport in project evaluation," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(3), pages 327-358, November.
    11. Etxano, Iker & Villalba-Eguiluz, Unai, 2021. "Twenty-five years of social multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE) in the search for sustainability: Analysis of case studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    12. Yongjun Shen & Elke Hermans & Tom Brijs & Geert Wets, 2013. "Data Envelopment Analysis for Composite Indicators: A Multiple Layer Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 739-756, November.
    13. Sébastien Bigaret & Richard E. Hodgett & Patrick Meyer & Tatiana Mironova & Alexandru-Liviu Olteanu, 2017. "Supporting the multi-criteria decision aiding process: R and the MCDA package," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 5(1), pages 169-194, November.
    14. Constantin Zopounidis & Michael Doumpos, 2013. "Multicriteria decision systems for financial problems," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 21(2), pages 241-261, July.
    15. Shmelev, Stanislav E., 2011. "Dynamic sustainability assessment: The case of Russia in the period of transition (1985-2008)," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 2039-2049, September.
    16. Colorni, Alberto & Tsoukiàs, Alexis, 2024. "What is a decision problem?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 314(1), pages 255-267.
    17. Gamboa, Gonzalo & Munda, Giuseppe, 2007. "The problem of windfarm location: A social multi-criteria evaluation framework," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1564-1583, March.
    18. Lozano-Oyola, Macarena & Contreras, Ignacio & Blancas, Francisco Javier, 2019. "An Operational Non-compensatory Composite Indicator: Measuring Sustainable Tourism in Andalusian Urban Destinations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 1-10.
    19. Naim Hamdia Afgan, 2010. "Sustainability Paradigm: Intelligent Energy System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(12), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Lennox, James & Proctor, Wendy & Russell, Shona, 2011. "Structuring stakeholder participation in New Zealand's water resource governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1381-1394, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3820-:d:177376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.