Yes Peter, trade-offs will be always there. Perhaps, we should talk more about then identifying acceptable trade-offs.

“… how nature functions so as to better exploit its resources without destroying it and breaking with human practices based on excessive use of resources and chemical inputs”

Yes. This is very pertinent to the environmental dimension of sustainability. The problem is that practices can be persistent without being sustainable. This “unsustainable persistency” (© Thorne, 2015), I think, results from unreliable perceptions of the relative importance of the different dimensions of sustainability. To take a pessimistic (possibly realistic) view in 2015, unsustainable persistency might be the only way to respond to increasing human populations in the medium term. If that’s the case then perhaps we should invest more in identifying environmental recovery strategies for our grand-children to benefit from?

Aziz. I try to notice as little as possible as I go about my daily business but you make a strong point about welfare. This is why, in our indicator framework, we propose multiple dimensions and our overall evaluation of sustainability is dependent on the trade-offs amongst these dimensions as well as amongst scales. Because it is a framework in development, please don’t ask exactly how as I can’t tell you! Whatever we eventually come up with my view is that trade-offs are absolutely at the heart of sustainability assessment and any attempts to assess sustainability will eventually run up against this (e.g. Vital Signs). If confinement of dairy cows to improve feed and health management results in a 25% increase in the consumption of milk by school age children in an impact domain can we accept the welfare cost?

Thank you Peter. It is always interesting to talk to you!

‘SI definitions are too crop-centric and only relate to land area.’ This is exactly my problem. SI has its origins in crop production as you mentioned but you may have noticed that there is quite a debate when this is applied to animal production. My second question in the previous one was exactly about this. The current definition raises concerns about animal welfare… we can surely expect decline in the animals’ welfare … if we are not very careful how we define SI. e.g. We are basically forcing cows to produce more milk by using ‘innovations’ which is resulting in metabolic disorders…

Greetings Aziz. I also favour Brundtland as a top level definition but it is not without its issues (see the presentation linked above). Coming up with a meaningful version / interpretation of it for a more detailed level of operation (e.g. field projects) is also a challenge. We have a clear definition of intensification “output : input increases” but not for sustainability. As I say above in response to Susan, the SI definitions are too crop-centric and only relate to land area. We can intensify against other inputs such as labour (appropriate scale mechanisation), fertilisers (targeted bending, precision placement). They also focus people’s attention too much on the output side without allowing for the huge gains that can be made from improving input use efficiency. Great example of this is fewer but more productive cattle across a given area of land; although I wonder if this particular outcome is pie in the sky. In the UK, there are more dairy cows per capita human population than there were 75 years ago and they are also significantly more productive.

Ahh. Now that sounds a very interesting opportunity for implementing the sustainability indicator framework, Mark. I will share with the three of you, by email, my initial attempts to “operationalise” a framework as well as a draft review that we did of sustainability indicators.

The indicator discussion is very interesting. We have now operational a modular on tablet survey in which the questions are directly linked to the calculation of several key indicators at farm household level, and will use it for baselining, characterization and prioritization exercises, but also to get a whole systems view on changes due to interventions in an M&E mode. We cover food availability, gender, food security, a household nutrition diversity score, the progress out of poverty index and a tier 1 GHG emission estimate, but it would be interesting to see what we miss when looking at the aims of a project like AfricaRising.

HA! I now have both you and Alan Duncan shaking in your boots! I feel an idea coming on….

Yes a roundtable is in order!! now on my ToDO list to organise.. .. this could be quite cool if we do it well…