WP3
WP3 Sustainability assessment & regional performance calculation
Research |
Aim and methodologyIn sustainable livestock sytems, land use, animal husbandry, manure management, energy production as well as food processing and marketing are interlinked. In this context, regionality and local value chains are also crucial for sustainable development. Cattle farming is particularly important as cattle can upcycle inedible biomass and by-products of human food production into nutrient-rich animal foods. A sustainable and efficient material cycle therefore aims to use biomass along innovative cascades, minimize waste and use resources more effectively. To meet these requirements, individual farm-level sustainability is increasingly becoming a focus of public interest as well. A wide range of different indicators is available for its analysis. Driven by the objective of promoting sustainability in agriculture, this study aimed to evaluate agricultural cattle farms in Hesse by a sustainable performance calculation based on various sustainability indicators. The status quo of sustainability was recorded by a standardized method as part of a comprehensive sustainable performance calculation (Regionalwert Leistungen GmbH, https://regionalwert-research.de/regionalwert-leistungsrechnung) using individual data from different organic and conventional cattle farms in Hesse. Due to the three-pillar concept of sustainability, the analysis included ecological (soil fertility, biodiversity, climate/water, animal welfare), economic (economic sovereignty, regional economic cycles, regional network) and social (expertise, role in the community, quality of the employment) categories. Depending on the number of farm type and farm size, several hundered indicators being assigned to several subcategories of different categories can be distinguished. Sustainability levels were calculated as percentages based on defined thresholds ranging from 0% (not sustainable) to 100% (highly sustainable) and were available at each aggregation level of the structural hierarchy. The evaluation was based on the calendar year 2023 or the agricultural fiscal year 07/2023–06/2024. |
A first result
