Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate-Smart Agriculture

Authors: Alice PICCOLO, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Kathrin RAUNIG, Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt

Agency: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

Mentors: Julian SCHNETZER & Heather JACOBS (FAO)
Counsel: Dilek YILDIZ (IIASA. VID/ÖAW)

9​th​ December 2019

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the RAUN team for impeccably managing this unique program
and being always willing to help; Julian and Heather for guiding us in a topic that was
unknown to us and pushing us to improve our work; Teresa for being always actively
ready to give us her inputs; and Dilek for providing us with her neutral academic
insights.

Abstract

This paper addresses the concept of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), which aims at
reducing agriculture’s negative contributions to climate change, rendering more
resilient farming practices in changing conditions, while sustainably increasing its
productivity to face the increasing demand of agricultural products of a growing
world population. The aim of the paper is to give recommendations for improving the
monitoring and evaluation (M&E) guidelines already created by the Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) for evaluating the performance of CSA, and
additionally, to give recommendations on how this framework could be linked to the
monitoring of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for use by
national governments. Therefore, we conducted qualitative interviews with farmers
in Austria and Italy as well as with two experts, resulting in several main findings and
recommendations regarding M&E of CSA and the agricultural sector in general.
 Contents

Introduction 1
Climate Smart Agriculture 2
Aim of Research and Research Questions 3
Literature Review 4

Methodology: Data Collection and Analysis 7

Results 10
Farm Profiles 10
Backgrounds of the Experts 12
Sustainability, Climate Change and Measures Aligning to CSA 12
Definitions of and Motivation for Sustainable Farming 12
Awareness of Climate Change and Strategies to Limit Its Effects 14
Co-benefits and Trade-offs between Measures Regarding the Three Pillars of CSA 16
M&E Activities Regarding the Three Pillars of CSA 17
Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 1 17
Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 2 19
Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 3 19
Evaluation and Consequences of M&E Activities 21
Overall Opinion on M&E 22
CSA and the SDGs 23

Main Findings and Recommendations 25

Main Findings 25
Recommendations 25
Final Remarks 27

Bibliography 29

Annex 1 – Coding Table 32

Annex 2 – Questionnaire 33
 Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate-Smart Agriculture
by Alice Piccolo & Kathrin Raunig

1 Introduction
We are witnessing a time when access to healthy food is still not a universal condition,
and the effects of human-induced environmental changes have become very frequent;
paradoxically, the waste of resources due to inefficient production and consumption of food
products seems unstoppable. Currently, 821 million people are hungry (FAO et al., 2019), and
the demand for food is expected to grow in relative and absolute terms, as the global
population is expected to reach 9 billion people by 2050 (Godfray et al., 2010), and middle
income countries are experiencing an unprecedented growth in pro capita income and are
therefore consuming more resource-intensive food (Zhou, 2012). As a consequence, by the
middle of this century, the world will need between 70% to 100% more food (Godfray et al.,
2010).

Agriculture is the most land-intensive sector across the globe, as between 1,2–1,5
billion hectares are under crops, 3,5 billion hectares for grazing, and an additional 4 billion
hectares of forests are used for human subsistence (Howden e al., 2007). Above all,
agriculture “[…] in its many different forms and locations remains highly sensitive to climate
variations, the dominant source of the overall interannual variability of production in many
regions and a continuing source of disruption to ecosystem services” (Howden e al., 2007).
Because of this tight dependence, a changing climate can have serious impacts on agricultural
production, and everything related to it (Howden e al., 2007). Thus, it is essential to find ways
to enable this sector to reduce its negative contributions to climate change, to render more
resilient adaptation conditions, while sustainably increasing its productivity to face the
growing population. The latter are the main features characterizing the concept of
Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), which is the focus of this research. The aim of the paper is
to give recommendations for improving the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) guidelines
already created by the Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) for evaluating the
performance of CSA, and additionally, to give recommendations on how this framework

1
could be linked to the monitoring of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) for use by national governments.
1.1 Climate Smart Agriculture
The CSA concept includes three goals, or ‘pillars’: (1) sustainably increase agricultural
productivity and income as well as ensure food security; (2) adapt to climate change and
foster resilience to natural resources pressure; and (3) contribute to the reduction or removal
of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture (FAO,
2017). Especially in developing countries, agriculture still often accounts for more than 30%
of GDP (World Bank, 2019). Consequently, because of the many implications it has in
different socio-economic and ecological spheres, it can play a pivotal role in achieving the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (FAO, 2016). A multitude of disciplines have
implications with the agriculture sector (Wiek et al., 2011), and obviously benefit from a
general societal increasing concern regarding social and environmental sustainability, as this
can translate into commitments both in the public and private sectors supporting their fields of
expertise. Given the interlinkages between CSA and the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), it is important to assess the contribution of CSA to achieve the SDGs in order to
inform decision-makers on the synergies or potential trade-offs of investments in CSA.
Implementing the three pillars of CSA entails different consequences on different
SDGs (FAO, 2019a). Clearly, improving agricultural production qualitatively and
quantitatively (SDG 2) can bring about positive impacts on multiple SDGs, for instance,
alleviating poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2). Farmer families could afford a more
nutritious diet and have enough income for sanitary treatment when necessary (SDG 3).
Moreover, when a process becomes more efficient it often requires less farm operations,
which might mean less labor-intensive jobs (SDG 8) and shorter working times resulting in
more time for other educational (SDG 4), economic and/or social activities, especially for
more vulnerable individuals like children and women (SDG 5 and SDG 10). Additionally,
there are environmental benefits ensuing more efficient resource use in the production and
consumption phases of the supply chain (SDG 12), e.g. a lower impact on water resources
(SDG 6), the marine (SDG 14) and terrestrial ecosystems (SDG 15), a reduction in
greenhouse gas emissions overall (SDG 13), and mitigation of international conflicts for

2
 1
resources (SDG 16) . On the other hand, it is possible that the SDGs and the CSA goals may
conflict and lead to an increase in the use of resources. For example, if a farmer notices that
by adopting a more efficient method with the same resources s/he could cultivate a wider
piece of land, s/he might do so, which is positive for his/her own family well-being in the
short run, but detrimental for the environment. This so-called “rebound effect” (Hertwich,
2008) is a common phenomenon and can be identified by considering the three dimensions of
sustainability (economic, social and environmental). These trade-offs are often unavoidable,
and policymakers are confronted with the challenge of finding a compromise (FAO, 2017),
which is one of the reasons why it is important to have suitable and accurate guidelines to
measure and monitor CSA and its effects on the SDGs.
1.2 Aim of Research and Research Questions
Scientific research into M&E of CSA as well as the interlinkages between CSA and
the SDGs is still at a preliminary stage. The aim of our research project is to understand which
indicators are already used by farms and how they could contribute to developing a useful
M&E framework to evaluate the performance of CSA projects. M&E indicators are important
in order to inform decision-makers and sponsors on required policies as well as the benefits or
potential trade-offs that investing in CSA could bring about. In our research we assume that
some existing farms or projects are already implementing actions and measuring progress
regarding at least one of the three pillars of CSA, but do not label them as such. By
identifying these actors, our research hopefully does not only add to the existing CSA-projects
database, but also may contribute to the improvement of the current M&E guidelines of FAO
(FAO, 2019b) by recommending lessons learned from the M&E processes of the identified
farms. Furthermore, the interviewed farmers may have already linked their CSA-activities to
the SDGs and, consequently, could contribute to the methods and the framework for linking
CSA-activities to the SDGs.

Research questions:
● Which practices do sustainable, agricultural projects or farms follow, that also align to
the three pillars of CSA?

1
See also: UN Environment on CSA-initiatives in Uganda and Cameroon to SDG 17; UN Women on projects in
Mali and Malawi to empower women thanks to sustainable agriculture; World Bank Group’s support countries
in developing metrics and indicators to monitor and evaluate CSA and its contribution to the SDGs. 

3
 o Which indicators relevant to the three pillars of CSA do these farms or projects
measure?
● Which lessons can be learned from these farms for the development of an M&E
framework for CSA by FAO?
● Which lessons can be learned from these farms for linking CSA to the SDGs and how
can they contribute to measuring a country’s performance on the SDGs?
o How do the projects or farms link their indicators to the SDGs or, in case they
do not, how could they be linked to the SDGs?
o How could data collected through M&E of CSA be aggregated so it can be
used for the M&E of progress in reaching the SDGs?

Before answering our research questions in chapter 4 ​Results and giving

recommendations to FAO in Chapter ​5 ​Main Findings and Recommendations,​ the status quo
of scientific research regarding CSA will be dealt with in chapter ​2 ​Literature ​Review​. In
chapter ​3 ​Methodology: Data Collection and Analysis​, we present the methods used for data
collection and analysis. Our research is concluded in chapter ​6 ​Final​ ​Remarks​.

2 Literature Review
CSA is a recent concept and, although a lot of research has already been undertaken,
more effort should be placed on investigating CSA measures, including their benefits,
trade-offs, and significance for achieving the SDGs. A summary of the most promising work
on CSA measures, their monitoring and evaluation, as well as their interlinkages to the SDGs,
is presented in this chapter.

In general, in order to develop appropriate measures and define a baseline for M&E,
data on local and regional conditions must be obtained through field surveys, focus group
discussions, biophysical experiments (Shirsath et al., 2017), geoinformation, Earth
observations, climate models, economic assessments and models. All CSA measures should
align to the three pillars of CSA, although it is acknowledged that ‘triple wins’ for all three
pillars at the same time are not always possible and trade-offs have to be accepted. Mitigation
measures include greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, carbon sink enhancements and
fossil fuel offsets. Fossil fuel offsets encompass that farmers buy carbon credits to
compensate emissions from their production systems or replace fossil fuels with energy from
renewable sources. Adaptation measures include technological advancements, adaptive

4
farming practices and financial management. It is necessary to consider both supply- and
demand-side measures of CSA when assessing the contribution of practices to the three pillars
of CSA. On the supply side are measures occurring on the farms themselves, while measures
on the demand-side of agricultural production correspond to the demand of retailers and
consumers of agricultural products. However, the benefits of these measures are often
site-dependent and differ according to agricultural practices, environmental conditions, or the
production and consumption of specific products. Furthermore, CSA measures are doubtlessly
more effective if accompanied by changes in consumer behavior. Therefore, interdisciplinary
cooperation is necessary to develop simultaneous policy and market incentives to link supply
and demand side (Scherer and Verburg, 2017).

Although CSA promises potential benefits for climate change adaptation and
mitigation as well as a sustainable increase in productivity, the adoption of CSA has been
limited. The main reasons for the lack of adoption include socio-demographic and economic
2
conditions, agro-ecological scales and the nature of the practices. Putting aside the challenge
to push CSA adoption, the potential trade-offs among diverse goals is one of the reasons it is
important to have suitable and accurate guidelines to measure and monitor CSA and its effects
on the SDGs. The Climate-Smart Agriculture Sourcebook (FAO, 2017) provides some
guidelines on the steps to monitor and evaluate CSA projects. Measuring the multiple effects
of CSA is not easy, and there is no agreed set of indicators. Nonetheless, there are three
indices which are used frequently, for instance by the World Bank for their CSA projects: The
Policy Index, the Technology Index, and the Results Index (World Bank Group, 2016). They
are used respectively to measure a country’s institutional readiness to support CSA
interventions, as an ex ante measure of the ability of CSA interventions to reach CSA’s three
objectives, and to measure a project’s success to reach CSA’s objectives (FAO, 2017). As a
matter of fact, there are some aspects, such as adaptation and resilience to climate change that
are scarcely measurable quantitatively. In order to find qualitative indicators for them (and
thus, for pillar 2), it is fundamental to have a holistic perspective of the impacts of climate
change on men and women’s livelihoods and food security, and a solid understanding of what
is meant by ‘resilience’ in a particular context.

2
See e.g. Lan et al. (2018) for adoption barriers on different scales; see e.g. Glemarec (2017) for gender-specific
barriers;

5
 In addition to measuring the effects of actions taken on a project level to provide
policymakers with recommendations, a national or international M&E framework is also
needed to assess global progress in reaching the UN’s SDGs. The ways in which sustainable
agriculture is embedded in the SDGs and the status quo of monitoring standards such as
certification and labelling, self-assessment tools, etc. – are highly fragmented between
countries but also within the agricultural system. They exist e.g. only in specific parts of value
chains of ‘sustainable’ products, especially where retailers and processors are requiring
certified products from the farmers for market entry. In addition, there are contrasting visions
of sustainable agriculture: one, which focuses on eco-efficiencies, and another, which focuses
on the functional integrity and maintenance of resilient agricultural and ecological systems.
Thus, different forms of policies exist globally, and the UN’s Forum on Sustainability
Standards tries to find common standards through the facilitation of multi-stakeholder
platforms on voluntary sustainability standards. Furthermore, global trends such as
urbanization, peri-urban and urban agriculture are expected to play a significant role in the
future. Answers to questions regarding the politics of data generation and investments for
indicator measurement, monitoring and evaluating SDG achievement are needed (Williams et
al., 2018).

There are different local or regional frameworks for monitoring and evaluating CSA in
3
different ecosystems and contexts. These M&E frameworks are mostly developed according
to the prevalent conditions and CSA-projects, which is why integration on a national level and
embedding into SDGs are challenging. To develop a general M&E framework for CSA,
4
lessons learned on M&E frameworks from other sectors might be helpful. The Research
Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has developed a very
thorough set of indicators for every CSA goal, albeit not related to the SDGs (CCAFS, 2019).
Furthermore, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s adaptation

3
see e.g. on CSA in Kenya: Berre et al., 2016; on biodiversity: Burton et al., 2014; on climate change adaptation
by smallholder farms in Timor-Leste: Chandra et al., 2016; on terrestrial ecosystem resilience: De Bremond and
Engle, 2014; on dry beans in Central America and dry beans and maize in east Africa: Eitzinger, 2018; on
electronic governance for sustainable development: Estevez et al., 2013; on cropping systems: Khatri-Chhetri et
al., 2019; on M&E of Multi-Stakeholder Platforms: Kusters et al., 2018; on integrated coastal management in
the Netherlands: Vugteveen et al., 2014; on coral reefs in the U.S. see e.g. West et al., 2017; on Ethiopia: Woolf
et al., 2018;
4
see e.g. on energy development projects in Ethiopia: Colombo et al., 2018; on energy in Italy: Delponte et al.,
2017; on a resilience indicator framework: Engle et al., 2014; on city sustainability indicators: Gibberd, 2017; on
the integration of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction: Pilli-Sihvola and Väätäinen-Chimpuku,
2016; on indicators for SDG 14: Recuero Virto, 2018;

6
program for small farmers developed a set of indicators that is slated for adaptation to the
SDGs (IFAD, 2012). Also, Syngenta has built a Good Growth Plan formed by a 6
commitments scheme, including different indicators linked to different SDGs (SYNGENTA,
2018). Rodríguez (2018) identified the contributions of sustainable agriculture to the SDGs, in
a set of SDG targets and indicators related to CSA (Rodríguez, 2018).

An integrated M&E framework, with which organizations and countries can track their
progress in CSA and its contribution to reaching the SDGs, is still missing. Furthermore, the
low adoption rate of the concept of CSA itself might be a reason for the lack of scientific
research on the interlinkages between CSA and the SDGs. However, every country and its
policymakers require a solid M&E framework to track their progress concerning CSA and its
contribution to the SDGs to set conducive measures. Therefore, FAO is looking into how
M&E frameworks for CSA can be linked to the SDGs in order to support countries in
measuring and reporting progress on both CSA and SDGs.

3 Methodology: Data Collection and Analysis

After a thorough review of the existing literature, it is clear that the concept of CSA is
still not widespread in the agriculture sector, especially among small or medium farms. Yet, it
has a lot of commonalities with other already-established practices generally defined as
“green”, “sustainable”, and “organic”. For the purpose of this project it was assumed that
sustainable, green or organic farms, apart from development programs in the field of
sustainable agriculture or CSA, might have implemented actions and measured their progress
aligning with at least two of the three pillars of CSA, even if not labelling them as such.

Indicators are in fact the foundations of any monitoring and evaluation approach.
Hence, before building a methodological structure for our paper we needed to verify what
different tasks indicators can accomplish. An ‘impact indicator’ measures any kind of effects
produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or not intended. An
example is the percentage of population that is food insecure (FAO, 2017). Instead, an
‘outcome indicator’ measures the quantity of goods and/or services provided, and their
efficiency (Horsch, 1997). In the case of CSA an example could be fewer greenhouse gas
emissions in the production process (FAO, 2017). Finally, a ‘process indicator’ measures how
services and goods are produced (GIZ, 2013), and it is often needed to evaluate climate
change interventions to track e.g. technologies dissemination (FAO, 2017). To be efficient,
indicators must have some characteristics that can be summarized with the acronym SMART:

7
Simple, Measurable, Attributable, Reliable and Time bound (FAO, 2017). Besides, there are
four typologies of indicators relevant for climate change interventions; i.e. quantitative (e.g.
the number of men and women with increased income); qualitative (e.g. beneficiary
perception of a service); proxy indicators “that give an approximation of a desired measure in
situations where a direct indicator is difficult to assess”; and indices, “composed from other
indicators to provide a more simplified aggregate measure of change” (FAO, 2017).

Since our objective is to understand how sustainable farms are trying to monitor and
evaluate their work, we believe that a qualitative approach fits our purpose better. Therefore,
qualitative interviews were conducted with three farmers in Austria and two in Italy. In
addition, we conducted two expert interviews to add on to our findings. Qualitative analysis is
more accurate to assess the process and reasoning behind a phenomenon. In this case, it
helped us to understand why a farm has selected a set of indicators over another to monitor an
aspect of sustainability, or why it has chosen to commit more to one sphere of sustainability
and less to others. Such decisions are case specific, and depend on the characteristics of the
individual farm, in terms of history, environmental and human resources, financial
capabilities and so on. To draw conclusions applicable at farm as well as country level, we
must find the underlying common patterns among the interviewed parties. To do so, after
collecting and transcribing our field data we analyzed it by performing a ‘codification’.
Codification here means that we selected a set of variables and reread all the scripts while
verifying if and how these variables are mentioned. Consequently, we report interesting
variables found in the results chapter and try to draw patterns between the answers given in a
more concise format, remaining aware of the differences between the farms (for more clarity
on all variables and the coding table, consult ​Annex 1 – Coding Table​). A similar procedure
was performed for the expert interviews. In this case, we coded comparing expert interviews,
but also expert interviews with farm interviews. Once the interview data was analyzed, we
looked at the results to develop recommendations for FAO and specify our most important
findings. As soon as all the farms were interviewed, we realized that we had to revise our
initial objective of linking the indicators used to measure CSA at farm level with the SDGs to
monitor a country’s performance. This was due to the fact that most of the farms interviewed
barely knew the SDGs and have until now not aligned their practices and/or measurement
practices to them. Therefore, we could only ask them which SDGs the farmers would link to
their practices. Additionally, even the expert’s interview with Professor Centofanti did not

8
allow us to gain more useful insights, as in her opinion, given the great diversity among
countries it would be difficult to find some harmonized M&E guidelines capable of respecting
this diversity.

We selected and contacted farms based on the information provided by their websites.
The farms had to be engaged in at least 2 of the 3 pillars of CSA in order to be considered.
Regarding the size of the sustainable farms we chose small or medium ones.

Before the interviews, a questionnaire was developed (visible in Annex 2). The first
set of questions asks for general information about the farms such as size, number of
employees, sources of income, agricultural products produced on the farm, etc. The second set
contains specific questions on the M&E conducted by the farms which involves e.g. questions
about which data is collected and how, if and how it is evaluated, if they use indicators and if
the evaluation has consequences for their further activities. Notably, the second part of the
questionnaire is divided into three subsections according to the three pillars of CSA. The final
questions relate to the linking of CSA indicators to the SDGs and the farms’ knowledge,
experiences and opinions in this field. The questionnaire is a combination of open-ended,
closed-ended, and multiple-choice questions. The interviews are semi-structured, meaning
that we have established a scheme to follow, but we also draw on the answers given to ask
some follow-up questions, to deepen or broaden a topic. The interviews were conducted in
German and Italian, depending on the mother tongue of the interviewee.

One last point is that throughout the interview many specific terms and phrases are
introduced, such as “Climate-Smart Agriculture”, “sustainable”, “resilience”, “climate change
mitigation”, “monitoring and evaluation”, “indicator”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, and
so on (visible in Annex 2). To collect accurate and consistent data, it is important that the
participants and we have a common understanding of them. Therefore, we always give
definitions or ask for the interviewee’s definition of the terms. In particular, for the CSA
concept and pillars we provide the definitions previously reported in the literature review
section. For the term ‘sustainable’ we ask the interviewees about their interpretation, whereas
when necessary we clarify other concepts. Regarding the SDGs, to facilitate the participant’s
task to tell us how and which ones s/he contributes to achieve, we decided to make this
visually easier by showing him/her the SDGs table and asking to cross the relevant ones.

9
4 Results
4.1 Farm Profiles
Given the quantity of general information gathered on the farm profiles, we included
and summarized everything in ​Table 1 visible below. For the sake of clarity, the Austrian
5
farms’ names are: ADAMAH Biohof located near Vienna, FarmAUT1 , located in the West
6
of Vienna and FarmAUT2 , located in the Northeast of Vienna. On the other hand, the Italian
farms are in northeastern Italy and are called Azienda Agricola Venica & Venica and Azienda
Agricola Principi di Porcia e Brugnera and they are both located in the Friuli Venezia Giulia
region. They both participate in a project launched by the Italian Ministry for the Environment
called VIVA to promote sustainable viticulture. In order to take part in VIVA, the businesses
need to measure and respect some established thresholds of four main groups of indicators:
‘air’, ‘water’, ‘vineyard’ and ‘territory’.

5
The interviewee chose to be anonymous.
6
The interviewee chose to be anonymous.

10
Table 1: Farm Profiles (own research).

Austria Italy
Name ADAMAH Biohof FarmAUT1 FarmAUT2 Principi di Porcia e Venica&Venica
Brugnera
Position of Managing Managing Director Managing Managing Director Responsible for
Interviewee Director & & Founder Director & + Vice Director external
Founder Founder communications/
events
Founding 1997 2006 2000 1181 1930
Year
Organic 1997 2006 2000 Not Organic Not Organic
Farming since
Agricultural Crop Production Mix of crop & Crop Production Mix of crop & Crop Production
Focus livestock livestock
production production
Production Producing Producing Producing Producing mainly Producing primarily
for primarily for sale primarily for sale primarily for sale for sale, with some for sale
own consumption
Number of 130 4 6 (seasonally 36 29 (seasonally
Employees variable) variable)
Average Level middle skilled workers compulsory middle school/high high school
of Education (academics and education school
Employees unskilled
workers)
Ownership Owned with Owned with Mainly rented-in, Owned with written Owned with written
Structure written written leased or documentation & documentation &
documentation & documentation &
sharecropped rented-in, leased or rented-in, leased or
rented-in, leased rented-in, leased
with written sharecropped with sharecropped with
or sharecropped or sharecropped
agreement & very written agreement written agreement
with written with written little land owned
agreement agreement with written
documentation
Additional Processing of Processing of own Trading Company Electricity from the Agriturism/ holiday
Income own products, products, on-farm (for sale of biogas plant farm
on-farm teaching, teaching, on-farm products) & wind (feed-in to the
on-farm sale sale power plant public grid)
(feed-in to the
public grid)
Receipt of Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
public
subsidies
Viable Yes No Yes No No
without
Subsidies?

11
4.2 Backgrounds of the Experts
Harald Grabher from Caritas is responsible for managing the development program
‘sustainable land-use’ and facilitating the program’s projects in Ethiopia and Mozambique.
They are using a landscape approach; hence, they include all villages and people within a
watershed. Beside the focus on projects regarding on-farm agricultural practices and carbon
offset projects, the whole landscape system and its stakeholders are included in developing,
setting and evaluating practices to reach economic, social and ecological sustainability. All
the projects perform M&E. Data are collected and reported by Caritas experts who are
directly working in the field. At the program-level, the data are collected and aggregated, and
the indicators are used to measure and evaluate their success.

Professor Tiziana Centofanti has the position of Visiting Professor at the Central
European University of Budapest teaching courses on Environmental Pollution and
Bioremediation Methods, Environmental Health, Agroecology, and Food Policy. She is an
environmental scientist with a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and an M.Sc. in Agricultural
Sciences. Consequently, broadly speaking she researches on agricultural and environmental
sustainability issues, which specify in restoration ecology of degraded land, local institutions,
and human drivers for the conservation of natural resources.

4.3 Sustainability, Climate Change and Measures Aligning to CSA

4.3.1 Definitions of and Motivation for Sustainable Farming
From the three Austrian interviewees we received three different but overlapping
definitions of sustainable farming. The founder and managing director of ADAMAH defined
sustainable farming as thinking and acting in cycles. The idea is, that every output should be
used again in the same or another system, namely as much resources as possible should be
re-used. Another important aspect of sustainable farming for him is considering next
generations, namely his children and grandchildren. For the managing director of FarmAUT1
sustainable farming is done by thinking thoroughly about every work step’s usefulness and
consequences. The managing director of FarmAUT2 focuses on ecological, economic and
social sustainability when defining sustainable farming. Sustainable farming for him means
the preservation of limited ecological resources for agricultural prosperity and providing
social benefits to employees. All Austrian farmers mentioned to practice organic farming by
conviction. The managing director of ADAMAH acts according to the principle “be the

12
change you want to see in the world” and out of the responsibility he feels towards future
generations. The interviewee of FarmAUT1 additionally stated to practice organic farming
due to economic reasons.

The Italian interviewees answered very similarly. Principi di Porcia e Brugnera

referred to circularity in production as the main strategy for sustainable farming. They
explained that by reducing as much as possible what exits the production circle, it is possible
to reduce the inputs because of higher efficiency, and this is what makes a farm economically,
environmentally and socially sustainable. For this reason, throughout more than eight
centuries of history of their business there was never a day in which they decided to become
sustainable or green. Venica & Venica stressed the importance of “caring and respecting”, in
fact, “a sustainable farm is one that cares and respects nature and people” (O. Venica, Azienda
Agricola Venica & Venica). They have also never decided to be sustainable; it is just a normal
practice considering that this is a family farm and both the parents and the children of the
interviewee are involved in its activities and it is in everyone’s interest to preserve nature and
healthy people.

In the development programs of Caritas, sustainability is defined according to the three

spheres of sustainability: environment, economy and society/culture. Although the three
spheres are weighted differently in the projects, they try to balance them in their projects.
Harald Grabher finds the involvement and participation of all stakeholders and clients as most
important for ensuring sustainability. To reach environmental sustainability, the projects only
implement ecologically sustainable agricultural practices and try to reduce external inputs to
e.g. gain independence from multinational corporations for seeds. Agricultural production
inputs should be purchased regionally. An ecologically sustainable practice has positive
effects on nature, which is defined by science. In addition, a project is considered
economically sustainable, if the farmers continue the implemented practices beyond project
duration and independent of financial technical support. Such practices are e.g. farming
independently from chemical fertilizers, pesticides and hybrid seeds. Cultural or social
sustainability is reached by working and learning together with all stakeholders. In general,
the projects aim to reach the SDGs.

Professor Centofanti admitted the difficulty to define “sustainable farming” because of

the complexity and numerous points of view that can be considered. However, a general
definition can be that sustainable farming is a set of “practices that do not deplete social and

13
environmental resources.” She highlights that looking at the community and at the workers
and their quality of life is very important, because when people are affected negatively by
their work, a farm could never be sustainable. Then, the environmental resources that should
be used sensibly are soil and water, because a misuse of these two can cause great damage to
the environment, to the farm’s production and to the community.

4.3.2 Awareness of Climate Change and Strategies to Limit Its Effects

Regarding awareness and perception of climate change, all farmers mentioned to be

aware of and perceive effects of climate change. The Austrian farmers stated phenomena such
as change of parasites, damage of cultivated plants due to heat, heavier and longer periods of
drought, increased frequency of hail, frost, stronger storms, temperatures over 30 degrees
Celsius and a higher water demand. The Italian farmers mentioned similar observations, and
some specific problems they reported were higher body temperature of cattle in summer and
shorter harvesting times for the grapes. Nevertheless, Venica & Venica pointed out that it is
not always possible to attribute the causes to climate change. In the case of the grapes, she
said that indeed the harvesting period is shorter, but it may be due to different issues, such as
the genetical developments of the plant, and reduced use of chemical products that were
delaying the natural maturation of the grapes. Harald Grabher mentioned that the farmers in
Ethiopia and Mozambique observe droughts in higher frequencies, longer dry spells and more
difficult cultivation situations due to water shortage, soil degradation.

To cope with environmental as well as financial problems, the interviewed farmers

and Harald Grabher reported some risk mitigation strategies that can be adopted by farmers,
such as: information and experience exchange with farmers and experts; ownership of land -
possibility of taking out a loan; insurances against natural hazards such as lightning, storms,
heavy rain, etc.; expeditions for learning from other areas; producing feed reserves; being
member of an interest group; sharing of machinery with other farmers; maintaining soil
health; irrigation provided with renewable energy; biodiversity through avoiding
monocultures, crop rotation, building soil mounds on the fields with diverse vegetation for
diverse animals and reforestation, promoting bees; promotion and support of cooperatives;
development and implementation of alternative practices​; participation in seminars and
educational activities; diversifying the production and therefore risk.

14
 Additionally, some focused on the adoption of climate-resistant crops or livestock.
Although not using them yet, the Austrian farmers do not exclude them for the future, if
climate change effects will be more severe. Similarly, Venica & Venica has participated in a
study performed by the University of Udine on climate-resistant vine and is considering their
adoption. Instead, Principi di Porcia e Brugnera has already taken a first step, by replacing
their Fresian cattle, with a mixed breed, which is more resistant to temperature shocks,
produces more milk, and emits less methane. In general, the Austrian farms and Harald
Grabher have a negative opinion of hybrid seeds offered by multinational corporations and the
legal directives for authorization of new seeds as they are developed and tested growing in
ideal conditions, whereas conditions in farmer’s fields are changing from day to day. They all
wish for seeds that can cope with variable conditions.

Furthermore, all farms perform daily activities to reduce or remove GHG-emissions.

ADAMAH uses photovoltaic plants (PV-plants) for cooling their storage facilities and plan to
use electric vehicles for delivering their products to consumers. FarmAUT1 mentioned
planting trees, using renewable energies from a PV- and a solar plant as well as using wood
for heating. He also considers thoughtful manure and feed management as contributing to
CSA pillar 3. He argued that hay has a better carbon footprint than silage and uses a drag hose
for fertilizing so that less liquid manure and ammonia is lost on the field as it is put closer on
the ground. FarmAUT2 operates a wind power station and uses PV- and solar plants.
However, the managing director of ADAMAH mentioned that it is often difficult to set
actions contributing to CSA pillar 3 due to law. For example, he cannot plant as many trees on
his land as he wishes, because it would be then considered a forest, which would have an
impact on his possibilities to set future actions and receive subsidies. Both Italian farms have
installed systems to harness renewable energies such as solar panels, biogas plants, biomass
heater, charger stations for electric vehicles, different technologies to reduce the use of
tractors and machines (functioning with fossil fuels). Additionally, as said, more than half of
the land of Venica & Venica is covered by woods sequestering a great amount of carbon. The
two farms are not paying for carbon offset programs off their own farms, even if they are
committed in spreading their message to have more sustainable farms aiming at reducing their
environmental impacts. ADAMAH is the only Austrian farm involved in carbon offset
programs. ​They compensate the GHG-emission of their delivery vehicles and flights. The

15
managing director of FarmAUT2 would be interested in offering a carbon offset program
himself. Caritas already offers carbon offset opportunities.

4.3.3 Co-benefits and Trade-offs between Measures Regarding the Three Pillars of CSA
All the farmers see synergies on their farms regarding the three pillars of CSA. The
managing director of ADAMAH mentioned that their direct marketing, which includes
thorough planning of their delivery routes, is more economic for them and their customers and
also is more ecological as a diploma thesis conducted on their work demonstrated that only
visiting a farmer’s market by foot would cause fewer GHG-emissions than their way of direct
selling. Furthermore, through their close contact to customers and interested parties they can
inform them about organic agriculture, resilience and other topics and therefore influence
their customers’ opinion about agriculture. The customers not only benefit from healthy food
but also support a healthy environment by buying their products. However, again he finds
certain laws obstructive for many useful measures, which contribute to synergies. In his
opinion, policies often even lead to trade-offs between the three pillars of CSA. Also, the
managing director of FarmAUT1 mentioned the same benefits of their direct selling. In
addition, by allowing students to visit their farms they raise awareness on environmental
issues, but also benefit from drawing attention to their products. Also, cultivating different
varieties of grass, which are easily digestible for their cows, enhances biodiversity, but also
increases productivity and therefore income. Flexible use of fields in cooperation with a
neighbor enhances the ecological condition as well as productivity and income. In his opinion,
also the use of renewable energy contributes to all three pillars of CSA. Finally, through
trying to only use fields near the farm leads to increased income, productivity and to fewer
emissions. In the opinion of the managing director of FarmAUT2, his healthy soil leads to
higher profitability, productivity, resilience and captures carbon. All in all, the Italian farms
relate to what reported by ADAMAH regarding the synergies between the three pillars
resulting from their commitment of communicating their sustainable practices to their
customers, colleagues of the sector, politicians, students by participating in research projects,
and the community as a whole. As an example, Venica & Venica in 2019 started publishing a
sustainability report, to communicate their message better, and additionally said that they are
trying to involve as many other farms as possible in the VIVA project, to reach more
consumers and have more farms that choose to work in a cleaner way. Principi di Porcia e
Brugnera repeated multiple times that to them “efficiency has become resilience” (A.

16
Quellerba, Principi di Porcia e Brugnera) connecting the first and the second pillar, and to
them efficiency is a consequence of “closing the circle”. That is, when an economic actor is
able to effectively use and reuse the resources available, and to revalorize the discards of a
process and reinsert them in the latter, s/he becomes stronger and more ready to face any
potential risk, i.e. more resilient. One of their ways of closing the circle is using the manure of
the cattle in the biogas plant to produce clean electricity for them and for other users, and
finally using the material resulting from the anaerobic digestion to fertilize the fields.
Consequently, their way of being efficient (pillar 1) and closing the circle, allows them to
greatly reduce GHG-emissions (pillar 3). Yet, the managing director of Principi di Porcia e
Brugnera expressed his frustration regarding some political decisions on sustainable farming
that they consider too demanding and which would not allow them to produce enough and
survive as a business, especially since consumers still demand perfectly looking products.
This is a typical example of a trade-off between pillar 1 (productivity) and pillar 2
(resilience), in other words, a lack of a harmonious relationship between decision-makers and
the farmers, who are the ones directly facing risks of the agricultural sector. ​Harald Grabher
stated that many practices are contributing to all three pillars of CSA. As examples, he
mentioned that using regional seeds and implementing tree nurseries leads to higher
productivity, more income, resilience and other livelihoods. Furthermore, by using regional
seeds long delivery routes from abroad can be avoided and therefore contribute to reducing
GHG-emissions. However, he finds M&E of synergies or trade-offs too complicated.

4.4 M&E Activities Regarding the Three Pillars of CSA

4.4.1 Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 1
In general, some data and indicators aligning to CSA pillar 1 – sustainably increase
agricultural productivity and income as well as ensure food security - must be collected and
reported by the farmers by law or because of agreements with food retailers. Besides, the
Austrian and Italian farmers mentioned using additional indicators for supporting their daily
farm work, and from every kind of produce different indicators are derived. ​Table 2 shows the
mentioned data and indicators, which can be used for M&E of CSA pillar 1.

17
Table 2: Data Collection and Indicators regarding CSA Pillar 1 (own research).

Austria Italy Experts

Interviewee ADAMAH FarmAUT1 FarmAUT2 Principi di Venica& Harald Grabher
Biohof Porcia e Venica
Brugnera
Data collection Bookkeeping of harvest per field section Increase of income​ – if an
and Indicators Double bookkeeping of financial records Area under sustainable cu
regarding CSA Estimations on sales volumes of the different products relation to total program a
pillar 1 Price per unit of product to estimate production costs (considered indicators) split in practice
difficult) measures such as push-pu
Estimation of needed seeds in kilos for purchasing them rotation, soil m
​ ounds​, etc
Fertilizer input per hectare Adoption rate of sustaina
Working hours of employees per activity; overtime agricultural practices​ – ho
Use of fuels for agricultural machines and delivery vehicles farmers continue with sus
Amortization of machines agricultural practices after
Weather and market prices of specific years for comparison time?
Humus substance and health – nitrogen content Production per piece​ (e.g.
Manure production and management Estimates​ of amount of co
Use of pesticides up per household
Fruit rotation Food diversity score​ – nut
Water usage for irrigation did nutrition of the farmer
Animal husbandry – stock of animals, animals’ health more diverse because they
Records of nature conservation programs for subsidies different kinds of vegetabl
Inputs and outputs of biogas plant Change​ of overall situation
Obligatory data for the quality control by supermarkets (variable) wellbeing of farmers

18
 Furthermore, the Austrian farmers mentioned that they do not measure harvest
residues, materials sorted out and records of machine use. Many other aspects are “not
recorded on paper but known by heart or seen during daily work”. ​Caritas does not measure
water usage or work hours as it is too complicated to collect this kind of data, although Harald
Grabher would find it interesting.
4.4.2 Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 2
Table 3​ shows the mentioned data and indicators collected regarding CSA pillar 2.

Table 3: Data Collection and Indicators regarding CSA Pillar 2 (own research).

Austria Italy Experts

Interviewee ADAMAH FarmA FarmAUT2 Principi di Porcia e Venica& Harald Grabher Tiziana
Biohof UT1 Brugnera Venica Centofanti

Data No data Soil samples water inputs watershed Before

collection collection, only and analysis of soil health, and soil biological cooperations' measuring
and relying on its nutrient biodiversity viability, strength, resilience,
Indicators experience. ratios and biodiversity of animals in the structural having tools
regarding microbiological ecosystem (is not strictly components and and skills to
CSA Pillar 2 life monitored, but rather way of measure
observed in their work) organization; shocks is
fertilizers and adoption rate of necessary
pesticides-lower quantities sustainable
make the plants naturally agricultural
stronger practices
weather forecasts
temperature
production-in relation to all
the other indicators
mentioned

4.4.3 Data Collection and Indicators Regarding CSA Pillar 3

ADAMAH is compensating the GHG-emissions of their delivery vehicles off-farm
and therefore monitors the emissions of them. Apart from that they do not monitor the farm’s
emissions but try to set actions to reduce or remove them. The interviewee of FarmAUT1
does not collect data on GHG-emissions and does not think that it makes sense to e.g. monitor
the emissions of his cows. However, he finds national estimates based on emission factors per
cow useful. For that, the number of cows or other livestock must be known by the respective
national institution, which is the case for Austria, but not for countries such as Ethiopia as
Harald Grabher mentioned. FarmAUT2 estimates the carbon captured by its healthy soil.

19
 Both Italian farms calculate their carbon footprint in wine making as a prerequisite of
the VIVA project. Precisely it is divided in 3 sub-indicators, namely “direct emissions”
generated directly by the farm in the farm property, “indirect emissions” generated by the
farm’s energy use, and “other indirect emissions” generated by other kinds of goods and
services purchased and used by the farm in their activities. In doing so, they can track the
emissions from the vineyards to the disposal of the wine bottle. Both farms have reported to
use machineries that can do more than one task at the same time, which reduces the use of
fossil fuels, and have installed solar panels to have clean electricity. Moreover, Venica &
Venica as part of its property owns 40.3 hectares of vineyards and 42.5 hectares of woods,
and with the guidelines of the Italian Ministry for Environment, it is able to calculate the
carbon footprint of its products’ lifecycle, and estimate the carbon sequestration of their
woods, which allows them to confirm that they are able to sequester the emissions generated.
In the same way, Principi di Porcia e Brugnera tries to measure as much as possible its other
productions, especially the cattle husbandry. For instance, they replaced their pure breed cattle
with a mixed breed, which on the one hand emits less methane, and on the other, is more
resistant, and in the same conditions produces more milk. Finally, thanks to their biogas plants
they can produce six times the electricity that they use, providing clean electricity also to
other citizens.

In the carbon offset projects of Caritas the focus lies on reforestation, fuel efficient
stoves, solar lights and water use. For M&E purposes, they first measure the typical fuel
consumption of a household. Then they bring new technologies into the households and look
at the adoption rate. They collect data on how many stoves or solar lights were deployed; how
many of them were really used; when and how long they were used; and if they are damaged
or still intact. The results are output indicators. With the adoption rate they can then estimate
the reduction of GHG-emissions compared to the baseline value. Regarding reforestation,
they measure the survival rate of planted trees and collect data on the extent and height of
trees or shrubs to calculate their biomass index on the area and the bound CO​2​-equivalents.
However, estimating or calculating the reduction or removal of GHG-emissions in projects
with an agricultural focus would be too complex and time and cost intensive according to
Harald Grabher. Regarding the M&E of pillar 3, Professor Centofanti expresses her concern
about the fact that it is a highly complicated task which should not encumber farmers yet

20
should be performed by external entities with more skills on the matter. This would also make
broader comparisons and evaluations scientifically sounder.

4.4.4 Evaluation and Consequences of M&E Activities

For the Austrian farmers, it is especially important to fulfil the legal directives for
organic farming, subsidies or other legal obligations and the agreements with food retailers. If
requirements are not fulfilled, they need to change their practices. The M&E officer of
ADAMAH observes changes and develops measures for fulfilling their obligations. For them,
it is important to always identify the reasons for setbacks to set the right measures. However,
they mention that some factors such as weather cannot be influenced. The managing director
of FarmAUT1 mentions to compare their farm with other farms as well as with the Green
Report of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Sustainability and Tourism, to set their results in
context and to relativize their own progress. He mentions to usually know the reasons for
something not working out but can influence only a few factors. According to him, there
exists only a potential of 10% for experiments and changes as 90% are fixed due to location,
geography, climate, soil condition and weather. Also, he finds it important to base decisions
of change on long-term observations and not on year to year evaluations. Furthermore, they
set changes very often based on external factors such as available subsidies and market prices
and less on ecological or social factors, which indicates the steering power of policies. The
managing director of FarmAUT2 compares the annual results with previous years e.g. harvest
per hectares. He also relates them to weather conditions and market prices of the respective
years. He mentioned to set changes based more on market prices than on productivity. Hence,
the market and market prices determine profitable varieties and therefore what he cultivates.
Furthermore, he tries to balance the soil nutrients on his fields based on the soil analysis.
Harald Grabher and his team try to find the reasons and adjust to them together with the
relevant stakeholders, especially when adoption rates are low, feedback of the farmers
negative or the aims are not reached.

Generally, the Italian farms both reported that the outcome of their monitoring
practices are attempts to improve their performance. As previously stated, the managing
director of Principi di Porcia e Brugnera said that it would be impossible for them to draft a
business plan for the next year without consulting the whole data framework gathered for the
preceding one, to set new goals, spot problems and their causes and correct inefficiencies.
Then, it is highly important to assess and verify their performance based on the previous data.

21
Additionally, it is thanks to the data gathered since the beginnings of the 1990s that they were
able to take important decisions that have improved their social, environmental and
economical sustainability. For instance, it was noticed that since 2005 the milk production in
summer was drastically decreasing, which could be explained by higher temperatures, as a
consequence, a refrigerating system was installed, which improved the animals wellbeing, and
greatly increased the milk production, to the point that now the summer production is higher
than the winter one (it is normally the opposite), and also a more resistant mixed breed of
cattle was adopted. Venica & Venica instead reported that as a consequence of their
monitoring, they try to improve as much as possible the quality of their product and
production practices, in terms of sustainability. The interviewee said that given the land they
own, they are not interested any more in increasing the production, but only increasing the
quality, and improving their environmental performance.

4.4.5 Overall Opinion on M&E

All the Austrian farmers mentioned that they monitor and evaluate processes and
outcomes beyond the legally obligated data they have to report to the Austrian Federal
Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism. All of them find M&E of resilience most difficult.
All of them find the obligatory reporting to the Ministry cumbersome and consider only few
of the reported data necessary and interesting for their own practices. Often it is challenging
to have the resources to autonomously perform M&E activities. Although ADAMAH Biohof
has its own M&E officer, the managing director finds experience and knowledge more
important than measurements. M&E, for him, is too much of a workload and also insecure if
thinking about forecasts based on the results of measurements. He finds it more important to
set farming actions, which are considered sustainable and ecological by nature, and raise
awareness in society for organic farming. The managing director of FarmAUT2 mentioned
that M&E is extremely burdensome for him, because by being very time-consuming, he has
the impression of investing a long time monitoring the indicators required by the government
and not having enough to dedicate to the M&E that he considers useful.

The managing director of Principi di Porcia e Brugnera has advocated multiple times
that M&E is fundamental in the well-functioning of any business, because only by monitoring
they are able to take grounded decisions for the following year. Additionally, thanks to M&E
in any moment it is possible to go back to the data of the previous year to make sure that the
production activities are on track to reach the established goals. Without past data it is

22
impossible to make forecasts or evaluation. Instead, Venica & Venica reported that M&E is
important to them especially because it allows them to keep under control their achievements
in sustainability and improve their performances. As mentioned before, the wines of both
farms participate in the VIVA project, and M&E of wine production is mandatory for their
participation, which probably explains the answer of Venica & Venica.
7
Harald Grabher argues that indicators should be SMART . Too detailed measuring is
too cost and time intensive. He argues for implementing sustainable practices and measures
that are the most spontaneous, immediate and useful to the farmers and monitoring and
evaluating them with simple indicators. Many existing indicators are too difficult or too
complex to be estimated for their purposes, which is why he considers the simplification of
indicators an important precondition before they can be used in their programs or even by
farmers themselves. In general, he sees the collecting of data and estimating indicators as a
responsibility of the local government, which can report the results to the public authorities at
a higher level. Therefore, especially in a country like Ethiopia, he considers the installation of
administrative institutions as precondition for M&E on CSA and SDGs on a national basis.

Tiziana Centofanti agrees that M&E is very important in farming, but also admits that
it is very costly especially for Small and Medium Enterprises, which in the agricultural sector
are the ones that should be supported if an ecological transformation is desired, because of
their natural attitude to care for nature and community. She laments limited availability of
consistent data at European Union level, and currently only very few municipalities are
conducting M&E at farm level. This is a major obstacle to sustainable farming in Europe.

4.5 CSA and the SDGs

None of the farmers aligns their activities or M&E to the SDGs, because they were
mostly unfamiliar with the SDGs. Although the interviewee of the Italian farm Venica &
Venica reported that they know the SDGs and would like to include them in next year’s
sustainability report, their practices do not result from the SDGs. Harald Grabher mentions
that they develop their projects according to the SDGs and also try to use indicators which are
usable for measuring progress in reaching the SDGs. He thinks that the SDGs are very useful
for orienting their work. Especially, he finds it important to think globally and to see problems
in one country not only as problems of it but as problems of mankind. Furthermore, Harald

7
See chapter “Methodology: Data Collection and Analysis” for an explanation.

23
Grabher states that as a requirement by Caritas, they have to align their M&E to the SDGs in
the beginning of a project. However, after presenting them the SDGs, all the farms concluded
that their practices not only have positive impacts on their surroundings, but also contribute to
reaching the SDGs (see Table 4).

Table 4: Contribution of Sustainable Farming to the SDGs (own research).

Austria Italy Experts

SDG ADAMAH FarmAUT1 FarmAUT2 Principi di Venica & Harald Tiziana
Biohof Porcia e Venica Grabher Centofanti
Brugnera
1 X X X X X X
2 X X X X X X X
3 X X X X X X
4 X X X X X
5 X X X
6 X X X X X
7 X X X X X
8 X X X X
9 X X X
10 X X X X
11 X X X X X
12 X X X X X X
13 X X X X X X X
14 X X X X X
15 X X X X X X
16 X X X X X
17 X X X X X

Concerning specifically linking CSA indicators to the SDGs, Harald Grabher suggests
to base CSA indicators for measuring the progress in reaching the SDGs on estimates. They
should be done based on official numbers and the help of GIS by public authorities on the
national level. Instead, when thinking about developing and implementing official structures
for M&E of CSA, (which is what mostly concerns farmers directly), he argues for developing
them bottom-up in developing countries such as Ethiopia, because then not only the public
authorities know the numbers, but also the farmers would know about all the relevant
information of their farms. Certain data should be collected on farm level and then aggregated
from the local administrative level to the next level.

24
5 Main Findings and Recommendations
5.1 Main Findings
All the interviewed farmers consider M&E as an important tool for enhancing their
practices, especially the Italian farms. They consider it an unavoidable process of their work
methodology, yet they often lack time and financial resources to implement thorough M&E
practices. What was an encouraging result for us is that our interviewees confirmed our
expectations on the indicators used for every pillar of CSA, which all in all correspond to
those we found while doing our literature review, such as those indicated in CCAFS (2019).
Moreover, both Italian farms lamented a lack of support from local and national government
institutions that do not help in translating the farms’ efforts to be socially, environmentally
and economically sustainable in a real added value to consumers’ eyes. As a matter of fact,
regardless of the VIVA certification they have, currently on the supermarket shelves their
products are the same as the others, but with higher prices. The farmers would like to find a
way to communicate not only the quality of the product, but also the quality of their practices.
In addition, they wish sustainable farming to be not only supported by subsidies, but also by
policies that ease their daily work and allow for a way of farming that aligns to the three
pillars of CSA. In particular, some of the farmers mentioned that laws or policies often
impede agricultural practices, which contribute to all three pillars of CSA. One last point that
we dealt with in the literature review (FAO, 2019) and for which we found a confirmation
during our work in the field with Professor Centofanti, is that the aspects of adaptation and
resilience (pillar 2) are quite challenging to be monitored. As matter of fact, our expert
reported that before even attempting to measure them, it is necessary to have precise
indicators and data on the hazard and shock that can hit a farm. Only after this it is possible to
verify its resilience and adaptation, for instance by assessing which practices have changed
after the shock. Additionally, Heather Jacobs one of our mentors for this project from the
Climate and Environment Division of FAO, argues that it is also essential to determine the
exact aspects to measure regarding adaptation and resilience, and to define these terms for the
specific practice or organization concerned.

5.2 Recommendations
Based on our findings we propose the following recommendations when considering
M&E of CSA and the SDGs. ​Firstly​, policies in the field of agriculture should be reviewed
and formulated in a way that allows agricultural measures contributing to the pillars of CSA

25
and co-benefits. ​Secondly​, taking into account that every situation is different and must be
singularly assessed, prerequisites and performance indicators that define minimum standards
of social, economic and ecological sustainability should be predefined, so that all agricultural
practices contribute to the three pillars of CSA. As the projects of Caritas show, such
‘sustainable’ prerequisites and performance indicators also ease the M&E of agricultural
practices as the question if certain practices are sustainable or not must not be answered and
one can focus on the performance of the set measures. However, this would demand a change
of the overall orientation of the agricultural system from industrial farming, often including
ecological and social detrimental practices, to social, economic and ecological sustainable
practices. ​Thirdly​, M&E of CSA practices and its linkage to the SDGs is too time- and
cost-intensive for farmers themselves, this should be performed by public authorities on
different scales. Harald Grabher suggests to base CSA indicators for measuring the progress
in reaching the SDGs on estimates. They should be done based on official numbers and the
help of GIS by public authorities on the national level. When thinking about developing and
implementing official structures for M&E of CSA and their contribution to reaching the
SDGs, he argues for developing them bottom-up in developing countries such as Ethiopia,
because then not only the public authorities know the numbers, but also the farmers would
benefit from knowing relevant information of their farms. Certain data should be collected on
farm level and then aggregated from the local administrative level to the next level. In
particular, Professor Centofanti reported that in her opinion, the most important aspects that
should be monitored at farm and local (regional and/or town) level are the farmers’ life
quality, the productivity - also in terms of what and how natural resources are used - and food
security. Instead, other aspects regarding environmental and production changes due to
climate change at macro level should be monitored at national level by governments, NGOs,
or international organizations, especially if it is wished to link them to the SDGs. She adds
that with the first effects of climate change, it has become urgent to gather these data, yet even
in the European Union, research is very much behind and strongly relies on locally gathered
data. Nonetheless, Heather Jacobs (FAO) states that also national authorities should monitor
the indicators from every pillar of CSA. ​Fourth​, both experts claimed that when performing
M&E at any level, focusing exclusively on quantity of output and efficiency is outdated, the
latter are indeed, useful indicators, but measuring the quality of human and natural resources
is fundamental. A few examples mentioned by the experts are the soil quality, nutritional

26
quality and variety and water quality. ​Fifth​, many CSA practices contribute to more than one
pillar of CSA, however, M&E of synergies or trade-offs between different measures set is
considered too complicated. Therefore, indicators should be always kept SMART, namely
Simple, Measurable, Attributable, Reliable and Time bound. ​Finally​, we also found that a
structural transformation needs to take place in the relationship producer-consumer and
supply-demand. As Scherer and Verburg (2017) argue, CSA measures are more effective if
accompanied by changes in consumer behavior, wherefore interdisciplinary cooperation is
necessary to develop simultaneous policy and market incentives to link supply- and
demand-side. As a matter of fact, according to the Managing Director of Principi di Porcia e
Brugnera, sustainable farming practices can only be implemented when consumers are aware
and/or accommodating towards them, and policymakers must consider this when enforcing
new regulations on farmers. In fact, different practices imply different final products and
different prices. A policymaker cannot oblige a farm to drastically reduce the use of some
rather harmless chemical products, and then expect that the same farm can produce the same
quantity and the same perfect-looking products at the same price. And consequently,
consumers cannot require having healthy, fresh and local products, that also look perfect and
are cheap. This is simply not feasible. As Professor Centofanti said, if a country wants to
promote small and medium sustainable farms, which take care of the environment and the
community, it is necessary to cut the subsidies to big agricultural businesses that carelessly
take advantage of the resources, and divert them towards the former. It is detrimental to leave
small farmers the whole responsibility of saving the environment without support from the
state, because in so doing, countries like Austria and Italy run the risk of losing them.

6 Final Remarks
To conclude, by being in direct contact with farmers this study allowed us to dive
deeper into the sector of sustainable agriculture, and at the same time provided us with useful
information that could be applied to the concept of CSA. Since there is no example for
applied CSA in Italy or Austria, we could not investigate farms practicing CSA. This might be
seen as a shortcoming of our research, yet we preferred to consider it as an approach to
sustainable agriculture closer to the perspective of farmers trying to work respectfully with the
environment and people. Nonetheless, a limit of this research is that we failed in creating an
indicators framework for the three pillars of CSA, and in linking M&E of CSA with the
SDGs. This was a consequence of the nature of the farms interviewed, as some of them do not

27
perform very elaborated M&E practices. Still we were able to deduct numerous other insights
for practicing sustainable farming and M&E of CSA.

28
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Annex 1 – Coding Table
Interview Topic Number Categories
General Information C1 Definition of sustainable farm
Motivation for biological/sustainable/organic
C2
farming
C3 Technologies for data gathering
C4 Overall opinion about M&E
Pillar 1 - sustainably increasing
Data collection and Indicators regarding objective
agricultural productivity and C5
1
incomes
Evaluation and consequences of evaluation
C6
regarding objective 1
Pillar 2 - adapting and building
C7 Awareness and perception of climate change
resilience to climate change
C8 Climate-resistant crops or livestock
Risk mitigation strategies (insurances, information
C9
exchange, group of collectives, etc.)
Data collection and indicators regarding objective
C10
2
Evaluation and consequences of evaluation
C11
regarding objective 2
Pillar 3 - reducing and/or Data collection and indicators regarding objective
C12
removing GHG-emissions 3
Evaluation and consequences of evaluation
C13
regarding objective 3
On-farm activities to reduce or remove
C14
GHG-emissions
C15 Involvement in off-farm programs
Synergies/co-benefits and trade-offs between the
C16
three objectives
Farm's social, ecological and economic impact on
Conclusion C17
the surroundings
C18 Influence of SDGs on own activities
C19 Linkages between sustainable farming and SDGs
C20 M&E related to SDGs
Additional Expert Categories C21 Measuring synergies
Recommendations for national tracking of
C22
progress regarding CSA and SDGs
Projects' social, ecological and economic impact
C23
on the surroundings

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Annex 2 – Questionnaire

Interview Guide – Semi-Structured Interview: Monitoring

and Evaluation practices for linking Climate-Smart
Agriculture to the Sustainable Development Goals
INTRODUCTORY TEXT
We express our gratitude for your participation in this survey in advance.
We are here as participants of the Regional Academy for the United Nations (RAUN)
program, which is an educational program of the UN Vienna for young researchers. This
year’s RAUN research topic is “Environmental and socioeconomic sustainability. How to
create lasting impacts”. In particular, our research focuses on the topic of Monitoring and
Evaluation (M&E) practices for linking Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) to the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) is
supervising our research. We contacted you as interview partners because we believe that,
given the sustainable practices you apply, the M&E procedures of your business could inform
our research.
Your answers are extremely valuable for the success of our research, so we hope you can be
as precise and thorough as possible. We assure you that you can decide to what extent you
wish your information to be shared with our partner organization. We will record the
interview to prove the reliability of the data gathered, we hope you agree. Obviously, you can
receive the final draft of our research if you wish so. The interview will last about 1 hour, and
it will consist of two parts, one more focused on general information about your company
and the other will be specific on M&E.
Do you have any questions before we start?
Definition CSA by FAO:
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an approach that helps to guide actions needed to
transform and reorient agricultural systems to effectively support development and ensure
food security in a changing climate. CSA aims to tackle three main objectives: sustainably
increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to ​climate
change​; and reducing and/or removing greenhouse​ gas emissions, where possible.
CSA is an approach for developing agricultural strategies to secure sustainable food security
under climate change. CSA provides the means to help stakeholders from local to national
and international levels identify agricultural strategies suitable to their local conditions. CSA
is one of the 11 Corporate Areas for Resource Mobilization under the FAO’s Strategic
Objectives. It is in line with FAO’s vision for Sustainable Food and Agriculture and supports
FAO’s goal to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and more
sustainable".

A: GENERAL INFORMATION (to be filled in by the interviewee? or

shall we ask them?)
1. Shall we anonymize you and your farm in our paper?
2. What is your function on the agricultural holding?
3. When was the company founded?

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 4. How would you define a farm that works sustainably?
5. Since when is this SUSTAINABLE?
6. Why did it turn into a sustainable business?
7. From an economic perspective, what is the holding’s main agricultural focus?
Answer based on the economic value of your activities. Please specify the products.
⃝ Mainly crop production
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
⃝ Mainly livestock production
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
⃝ A mix of crop and livestock production
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
⃝ Aquaculture
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
⃝ Wood production
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
⃝ Other
Products:
______________________________________________________________________
8. What is the main intended destination of your agricultural production? Please fill in
one circle only.
⃝ Producing primarily for sale (selling 90% or more)
⃝ Producing mainly for sale, with some own consumption (selling more than 50% and up to
90%)
⃝ Producing mainly for own consumption, with some sales (selling more than 10% and up to
50%)
⃝ Producing primarily for own consumption (selling 10% or less)
9. How many employees are working on the farm? Equivalent in full-time jobs.
a. How many female/male?
10. Are people with disabilities working on the farm?
11. What is the average education level of the employees?

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 12. What is the tenure of the agricultural land used by the farm? If more than 1 answer
is selected, please indicate the approx. percentage of the total land used.
⃝ Owned with written documentation (includes a title deed, a will, a purchase agreement,
etc.)
⃝ Owned without written documentation
⃝ Rented-in, leased or sharecropped with written agreement
⃝ Rented-in, leased or sharecropped without written agreement
⃝ State or communal land used with written agreement (certified use rights)
⃝ State or communal land used without written agreement (uncertified use rights)
⃝ Occupied/squatted without any permission
⃝ No agricultural land
13. How do you generate your income? Just by cultivating the farm or are there
incomes from additional activities/ side jobs? Please sort in order of importance.
1st = highest
14. Do you receive any public funding? Do you think the farm could run/function
without it?

B: QUESTIONS REGARDING THE THREE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF CSA

Objective 1: sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes
1. What information is systematically registered on the farm regarding agricultural
productivity, incomes and sustainability? Which data are collected? Which data
could be collected additionally?
Elements for further inquiry if not mentioned by the interviewee:
Area cultivated/harvested
Crop production
Livestock production/aquaculture/wood production
Unit prices, amounts sold and total sales by product
Input quantities used (seeds, fertilizers, plant protection products, etc.)
Detailed quantities and prices of inputs bought
Workers’ time
Workers’ payment
Tractor hours per hectare or fuel per hectare
Soil health

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Manure Management
Other (specify)
2. Do you use any indicators? Which ones? How do you use them?
a. How do you monitor the productivity of the farm? e.g. product per unit of
land, water, energy, nutrients, labour
b. How do you monitor the profitability of the farm?
c. How do you monitor if the productivity and income of your farm is sustainably
increasing?
d. Do you use the monitored data and indicators for evaluation? And if so, what
are the consequences of the evaluation? Do you change your practices
accordingly?

Objective 2: Adapting and building resilience to climate change

Resilience encompasses absorptive, anticipatory and adaptive capacities and refers to the
properties of a system, in this case your farm. Resilience allows a farm to deal with shocks
and stresses, to persist and to continue to be well functioning (in the sense of providing
stability, predictable rules, security and other benefits to its members).
Concretely, some examples are:
-having insurance, enhancing biodiversity, being member of a cooperation (collaborating
with other farms), reduction of soil fertility monitoring, use of less hazardous
pesticides/fertilizers or natural remedies....
1. Have you noticed any effects of climate change on your agricultural activities so
far? How did you notice?
a. If yes, did you take any measures to adapt to it?
2. Do you use climate-resistant crops or livestock?
a. Are you using plants/livestock of the same species and just different varieties
or are you changing species?
b. If not, are you planning to use climate-resistant crops or livestock? When?
3. Do you use risk mitigation strategies such as crop insurance, (on-farm or off-farm),
diversification, …
4. What information is systematically registered? What data is collected on your farm
regarding resilience in the sense of the mentioned definition? Which data could be
collected, additionally?
E. g. water, soil, biodiversity, fertilizers, pesticides, meteorological data, production
5. Do you use any indicators? Which ones? How do you use them?
6. Do you inform yourself about climate change resilience and adaptation? If yes,
how?
Examples of “information methods”:
use of seasonal forecasts
tools to determine water/fertilizers quantities

36
 7. How do technologies help you in gathering information?
(if they do not own the land>>>do they think that owning the land would make them more
resilient or are they more flexible because they rent?)

Objective 3: Reducing and/or removing greenhouse gas emissions

1. What information is systematically registered? What data is collected on your farm
regarding GHG-emissions? Which data could be collected?
2. Do you use any indicators? Which ones? How do you use them?
3. Do you perform any on-farm practices specifically to reduce or remove GHG
emissions?
e.g. Planting trees, using renewable energies or … manure management (to reduce
emissions from storage and application of manure), feed management (to reduce
emissions from enteric fermentation in ruminant livestock species), energy/fuel saving
technologies, soil management/tillage practices (to increase carbon sequestration in the
soil),
4. Are you involved in any off-farms programs to reduce or remove GHG emissions?
E.g. payments to projects in the field of reducing carbon (voluntary offset)
5. Do you perform any activities with the aim to sustainably increase productivity or
resilience but which also achieve mitigation co-benefits?
6. Do you use the monitored data and indicators for evaluation? And if so, what are
the consequences of the evaluation? Do you change your practices accordingly?

C: CONCLUDING QUESTIONS:
1. What positive and/or negative impacts do you think you have on the surroundings,
environmentally, socially and economically speaking?
2. Do the SDGs somehow influence your practices?
3. What are in your opinion the most important linkages between sustainable farming
and the SDGs?
4. Do you register any information/monitor any indicators related to the
SDGs/aspects of sustainability identified through the previous question?

5. Would you like to add anything?

37