Establishing indicators for sustainable agriculture measurement
are a combination of many ideas and interests of different stakeholders
(policy makers at the national or local levels, local people, community-based
organizations, the private sectors, government and non-government
organizations, scholars and experts, interest group, etc.) having different
views as to the priority of indicators. Many stakeholders have developed
different indicators that can fi nally be considered as a part of a more
comprehensive set of indicators for sustainable agriculture. Many researchers
have defi ned indicators of agricultural sustainability and some of them
are reviewed for this research work: Barbier (1987) put forward biological
productivity, enhancement of equity, genetic diversity, participation and
social justice as indicators for economic development of sustainability in
the nature to be relevant for the Third World. For example, in a rural setting,
increase in productivity of agro-ecosystem and its equal distribution
among people are considered as sustainable. Simon (1989) defi ned certain
performance indicators of agro-ecological systems based on his review of
sustainability and considered sustainability as the central focus for linking of
the physical environment to human activity of local in nature and further
to a political economy in wider sense. According to him an effective and
tenure system can refl ect social equity.
Brklacich et al. (1991) introduced certain indicators in assessing
sustainable food production system. They emphasized on the perspectives
of environmental accounting and carrying capacity. Environmental
accounting refers to agricultural productions’ biophysical limits, and
carrying capacity represents the supported maximum population level on a
continued basis. Viability of production and sustained yield’s perspectives
were drawn upon resources’ economic views, which basically refer
to output levels that are maintained on a continuous basis and also