Sustainability in the Case of Small Vegetable Farmers: A Matrix Approach

Sustainability

Cristina Cautisanu¹  Simona-Roxana Ulman¹  Gabriel Vasile Hoha²  Ioan Sebastian Brumă³  Lucian Tanasă³ 

[1] CERNESIM Environmental Research Center, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, 700505 Iasi, Romania;Faculty of Food and Animal Sciences, “Ion Ionescu de la Brad“ Iasi University of Life Sciences, 700490 Iasi, Romania;Romanian Academy, “Gh. Zane” Institute for Economic and Social Research, 700481 Iasi, Romania;

关键词: sustainability matrix;    economic;    social;    environmental;    cultural;    private dimensions;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su131810320

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Considering that sustainability is a relative concept, but also that this limitation could be avoided through continuous adaptation of the evaluation tools by taking into account the directions of change (such as time, space, application domain), the goal of the present study is to elaborate a matrix for measuring the level of sustainability for small vegetable farms. Thus, looking at what sustainability could represent under such circumstances, we divided its characteristics into four main dimensions (economic, social, environmental, cultural), while adding the private dimension. Inclusion of the private dimension may provide potential added value to this study, and thus enrich the general perspective of producers’ capacity to meet the sustainability goals in their entrepreneurial activity. To quantify these five dimensions of the sustainability matrix, a questionnaire was built up and used as support for face-to-face interviews conducted at the level of the North-East Development Region of Romania. Our results showed associations between diverse components of the dimensions considered, revealing their synergy in farm activity, along with the occurrence of some differences in the levels of sustainability dimensions and sub-dimensions, which differ as a function of the specific types of vegetable production (conventional, ecologic, natural, mixed).

【 授权许可】

Unknown