Abstract
As global awareness of the roles and complexities of agriculture for sustainability challenges increases, emerging agricultural production-systems aim to model regenerative responses. These production-systems take on a wide diversity of organisational structures, including collaborative, participatory environments that bring together diverse stakeholders to co-create and test agroecological practices. This study explores the applicability of the Tool for Agroecological Performance Evaluation (TAPE), developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in assessing the agroecological transition of Biosuroeste, a multi-stakeholder Agropark located in the tropical Andes of Colombia. Biosuroeste integrates agroecology with the aim of fostering regenerative rural- and agricultural development. Results demonstrate that Biosuroeste scores highly in agroecological transition according to TAPE indicators. However, challenges in applying TAPE to non-household farming structures are highlighted, and suggested alterations brought forth. TAPE is concluded to enable communication and comparison of progress of the diverse initiatives of Biosuroeste on both an organisational and global scale. The study further concludes that while TAPE is valuable for agricultural sustainability assessment, its relevance is enhanced by its capacity to be tailored and adapted to specific purpose and localities, identifying potential trade-offs for stabilization of data for global comparison. TAPE developers are further encouraged to prioritize operational flexibility in future development of the tool, as an increasing diversity of agricultural initiatives look to TAPE for potential operative support.
Keywords
agroecology; sustainability indicators; participatory evaluation; agropark
Published in
Publisher: Department of Biosystems and Technology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Agricultural Science
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143330