Participatory assessment of sustainability in smallholding agriculture: the agroecological case in Central America.

Abstract

Within the Uni.Coo project, a partnership research project between the Turin University and the Italian Ngo Re.Te has been developed. A participatory process has been carried out to assess the sustainability of agroecological small-scale agricultural systems in Central America considering all relevant stakeholders. A participatory process was initialized firstly to develop a shared definition of sustainability and secondly to design a user-friendly and indicators-based framework for the assessment of the sustainability of agroecological farming systems. This paper aims to describe and analyze the steps of the participatory process giving insights for further research in the field of sustainability participatory assessment tools for small-scale farming.