Ranking farms using quantitative indicators of sustainability : the 4Agro method

The paper presents 4Agro, a new model for the assessment of environmental, social and economic sustainability of farms. The framework is based on a set of 42 indicators. The process has involved the following steps: identification of the most relevant variables that characterizes sustainability performances of farms, choice of the appropriate indicators, assignment of their range scores, data collection, calculation of the score for each farm and their visualization by graphic representation. The case study was represented by fifty farms from the South Milan Agricultural Park (Northern Italy). The method allows a comparison among farms or homogeneous groups of them, showing the sensitivity to their characteristics and farmers’ choices. The research shows the framework of 4Agro and discusses some relevant points related to the selection and weighting of indicators.