A Stock and Flow?Based Framework to Identify Indicators for a Holistic Comparison of Farming Practices

摘要

Abstract Traditionally, crop yield has been the main focus of agricultural policies and technological interventions. For designing appropriate agricultural interventions, a holistic set of indicators accounting for the short and long-term benefits and environmental impacts as well as socioeconomic sustainability of farmers is needed. In contrast with existing frameworks for assessing farming practices where the indicators are restricted to a preset attributes, we developed a stock and flow?based framework for a systemic identification of both short and long-term indicators. While stock variables inside the system capture the stability and resilience of the system, indicators identified from various dimensions of the biophysical flows across the system–environment boundary capture the desirable outcomes and undesirable impacts. Our framework also aids in selection of appropriate proxy indicators for hard to measure primary indicators by tracing their forward and backward linkages rather than avoiding them due to their complexity.