Search

Market opportunities and improved demands for sustainable production and consumption highlight the importance of engaging smallholder farmers. This study aims to understand the transition towards sustainability through the perception about the value created and appropriated of small poultry farmers who supply a company that practices Nature Farming, in a vertical integration system. The authors adopted a system of indicators (Ambitec-Agro, assessment of the impact of technological innovations in agriculture) and used content analysis software (ATLAS.ti) to assess farmers' perceptions. The results suggest that the transition to sustainable production creates capacities to add value, mainly from social and economic perspectives. In addition, the relational value has a strong influence on this dynamic. The study contributes by proposing an application of methodology based on mixed methods to identify the perceptions of smallholder farmers about created and appropriated value in migrating from an input-intensive production to a sustainable system, offering opportunities for improvement in traditional supply chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to evaluate the sustainability of a commercial organic broiler production system based on the concept of strong sustainability. Thus, the FIVE SEctors of SUstainability model (5SE N SU) under a perspective of Goal Programming philosophy were used and the results were compared to a commercial convencional broiler production system. For the data collection, two case studis were carried out in a representative commercial organic broiler production system (U P r O) and commercial conventional broiler production system (U P c) in the state of São Paulo from October/2020 to June/2021. The environmental and social dimensions were considered as providers of resources for the system and receivers of products and negative externalities. Environmental criteria were performed using the Emergy Synthesis, while economic criteria were performed using calculation models based on Economic theory. Furthermore, social criteria were performed using data collected on a farm. In the end, the broiler production system sustainability was compared using a general sustainability index by means of the Goal Programming philosophy. The results show a trade-off between animal welfare and economic and environmental costs. The lower stocking density in U P r O raised the animal welfare by providing more area/animal, but increased the resource consumption, GHG emission and the production cost. However, when social results were considered, U P r O showed more pathways to achieve a more sustainable commercial broiler production, as shown by the general sustainability index (43.2 and 49.4 for U P r O and U P c , respectively). [Display omitted] • Organic broiler production was more sustainable than conventional production. • There is a trade-off between broiler welfare and economic and environmental costs. • emergy could be used to policies creation from broiler fair price suggestion. • Stocking 12 birds/m2 raises the sustainability and holds the organic law compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lamb production in Brazil has the state of São Paulo as its largest consumer market, but due to competition for area with other agricultural activities, sheep farming in São Paulo underwent an intensification of the production system to achieve better economic profitability. This intensification can compromise the sustainability of the system. There is no research concerning about emergy evaluation on lamb production systems applied in Brazil, so this is the first paper to discuss the sustainability of lamb production systems using this method. Therefore, this article proposes to discuss the importance of considering environmental aspects in the economic analysis of production systems, aiming at the sustainable development of the sector. This study assessed the economic and emergy performance of three different sheep farms in Brazil managed under different levels of technology: Intensive, Semi-intensive, and Feedlot. Results show that from an economic perspective, the Feedlot system is more attractive (9,800 US$/yr for net profit) than Intensive and Semi-intensive ones, while emergy synthesis show that Semi-intensive system (30% for renewability) should be prioritized. On the other hand, when emergy is analyzed from an economic perspective based on Emdollars (Em$, with an 'm'), the economic advantage regarding the production cost of Feedlot on the Semi-intensive system becomes less evident. The Intensive system obtained the worst performance for economic, and emergy indicators. More than contributing to the discussions about the importance in considering a systemic perspective when quantifying the economic performance of production systems, this study also (i) establishes the most sustainable sheep farm system that could be supported in Brazil, and (ii) make available new unit emergy values that would enrich the existing emergy databases. • The synthesis emergy together with the economic assessment are performed for three sheep production systems with different levels of technology. • Intensive systems (Intensive and Feedlot) are economically profitable, but generate greater pressure on the environment. • Semi-intensive systems present less pressure on the environment, but are not economically viable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]