Implementation of the concept of sustainable intensification to a real farm – Was its development over 17 years a sustainable intensification?

ABSTRACT

‘Sustainable intensification’ (SI) in agriculture is the objective of several contributions. An important question concerns whether farms have already reached SI? To answer this question, an assessment approach is required. Unfortunately, there is no universally accepted approach available. This study presents an assessment approach that was adapted for the assessment of a real farm. The farm was analysed for over 17 years, and the development of the farm is presented and evaluated in terms of SI. Within this study, the adaption of the approach for the assessment is first described based on a defined procedure. Based on these results, whether the farm has reached SI is discussed. The most important results are that the farm has established a process of intensification. To assess the ‘environmental sustainability’ of this process, several subthemes and indicators are analysed. From 17 selected parameters, 7 declines, 6 improve and 4 remain almost constant. Whether the development can be called ‘sustainable intensification’ is discussed then. We finally draw attention to existing methodological deficits and limitations that will be included in later work or that could be considered in other assessment approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable intensification
• assessment
• indicators
• farm
• adaption
• procedure

Acknowledgements

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. I thank my colleagues for the useful discussions and comments on the overall concept of the paper and for proofreading the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Norman Siebrecht is a researcher at the Chair of Organic Farming and Agronomy at the Technical University of Munich. He has worked in different research projects about agriculture, environmental protection, and sustainable agriculture. His research interests are about assessing and implementation of sustainable agriculture and the development of methods for application on the farm scale.

Harald Schmid is a research associate at the Chair of Organic Farming and Agronomy at the Technical University of Munich since 2008, coordinator of a research project about ecological sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions in a network of pilot farms. He has an interest in organic farming, biomass production, and root growth, and the understanding and quantification of matter balances, in particular carbon and nitrogen cycles.

ORCID

Norman Siebrecht http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3077-8492

Harald Schmid http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5725-9652