Paving the way to a sustainability assessment of farming systems. TAB-Fokus

Sustainability assessments in the field of agriculture have focused on individual farms on the one hand and on the agricultural sector as a whole on the other hand. Aggregation levels in between have hardly been examined so far.
Comparisons of organic and conventional farming and their scientific evaluations provide reliable statements on fundamental differences for a limited number of sustainability indicators.
It is not possible, however, to differentiate with regard to significant natural landscapes and economic conditions of the farms and to map temporal developments of the sustainability performance of organic and conventional farming.
A comparative sustainability assessment of farming systems below the level of the agricultural sector as a whole offers the opportunity to generate more differentiated information on agricultural sustainability. However, the (further) development of such sustainability assessment
systems is still associated with an extensive need for development and action.