Lessons learned from a process of farm sustainability assessment : literature review, methodology and governance opportunities

The present paper aims at being a contribute for those need to assess the sustainability of farms, exposing the procedure followed for the construction of 4Agro, an application for the evaluation of farms of the South Milan Agricoltural Park, Italy. The survey started from the review of 5 methodologies (IDEA, RISE, SAFE. SOSTARE and MOTIFS) and highlights the possible solutions to some typical issues of this type of analysis: (i) data availability; (ii) selection of indicators; (iii) involvement of all stakeholders. The analysis also highlights the possibility to integrate, even in agriculture, the three typical scales of sustainability (environment, society, economy) with the one of the governance, as suggested by the SAFA guidelines.