Assessment of Agricultural Sustainability at Regional Level in Slovenia

Authors

  • Renata Slabe-Erker Institut for Economic Research Kardeljeva pl. 17 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia
  • Maja Klun University of Ljubljana Faculty of Administration Gosarjeva ulica 5 1000 Ljubljana Slovenia
  • Barbara Lampič University of Ljubljana Faculty of Arts Department of Geography Aškrčeva 2 1000 Ljubljana

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4335/14.2.209-223(2016)

Keywords:

local sustainability, agriculture, sustainability index, community-led-local-development

Abstract

Due to the steadily evolving concept of sustainability and new challenges for European agriculture, the sustainability concept has not been fully operationalized in practice, particularly not in the local level. This paper aims to make the concept of sustainable development operational through the elaboration of the Regional Agriculture Sustainability Index (RASI). Our research hypothesis is that sustainability aspects are not equally represented in regional agricultural development. The research confirmed large regional differences in achieving sustainability in agriculture and, additionally, particularly large differences between the various aspects of sustainability. In general, Slovenian regions show high environmental sustainability, while there was an obvious gap in the economic and social area in seven or five regions, respectively. We assume that common agricultural policy (CAP) requirements with their emphasized environmental component significantly contribute to the picture of unbalanced agricultural sustainability in Slovenian regions.

References

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Published

2016-04-01

Issue

Vol. 14 No. 2 (2016)

Section

Article