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Survival and Sustainability pp 165–177Cite as

The Evaluation of Sustainability of Organic Farms in Tuscany

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Part of the Environmental Earth Sciences book series (EESCI)

Abstract

Sustainability evaluation with an updated version of MESMIS Framework has been conducted in 5 organic farms in Tuscany, characterised by different management approach. The real differences is, indeed, determined by motivations that explain how the landscape, the work structure and the cultural heritage are organized, giving the present assessment of the Tuscan rural world.

Keywords

  • Sustainable agriculture
  • Social sustainability
  • Organic farms
  • MESMIS

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  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-95991-5_17
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Notes

  1. 1.

    At the general assembly of Adelaide, the 4 principle of health, ecology, fairness and care were included as preamble of the IFOAM Basic Standards (IBS).

  2. 2.

    To calculate same indicators, it was used a Likert scale in order to give an evaluation of personal judgment and non-numerical data, based on a five step scale.

  3. 3.

    See: http://www.fao.org/documents/advanced_s_result.asp

  4. 4.

    Turnover is calculated on the last ten years. The others indicators, on the last years.

  5. 5.

    This form of evaluation was choosen in a wide range of possibilities because we found it more suitable to use. The goal of the research was, in fact, to show a friendly methodology that presents understandable results for farmers, citizen, public authority. Moreover, according to MESMIS philosophy, we consider sustainability as a relative characteristic of a complex system, so we establish the cluster of farms as our reference system.

  6. 6.

    0 is not considered as the minimum sustainability value but as the real value 0.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Piazza Martiri della Libertà 33, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Chiara Certomà

  2. Department of Agronomy and land Management, University of Florence, Piazzale delle Cascine 18, 50141, Firenze, Italia

    Paola Migliorini

Authors
  1. Chiara Certomà
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  2. Paola Migliorini
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Correspondence to Chiara Certomà .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Civil Engineering, Near East University, Nicosia, Mersin 10, Turkey

    Hüseyin Gökçekus

  2. Dept. Civil Engineering, Near East University, Nicosia, Mersin 10, Turkey

    Umut Türker

  3. P.E.LaMoreaux and Associates, University Blvd. 2612, Tuscaloosa, 35403, Alabama, USA

    James W. LaMoreaux

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Certomà, C., Migliorini, P. (2010). The Evaluation of Sustainability of Organic Farms in Tuscany. In: Gökçekus, H., Türker, U., LaMoreaux, J. (eds) Survival and Sustainability. Environmental Earth Sciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-95991-5_17

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