A framework to monitor sustainability in the grains industry

Community awareness of the sustainable use of land, water and vegetation re sources is increasing. The sustainable use of these resources is pivotal to sustainable farming systems. However, techniques for monitoring the sustai nable management of these resources are poorly understood and untested. We propose a framework to benchmark and monitor resources in the grains indust ry. Eight steps are listed below to achieve these objectives: (i) define indust ry issues; (ii) identify the issues through growers, stakeholder and commun ity consultation; (iii) identify indicators (measurable attributes, propert ies or characteristics) of sustainability through consultation with growers , stakeholders, experts and community members, relating to: crop productivi ty; resource maintenance/enhancement; biodiversity; economic viability; com munity viability; and institutional structure; (iv) develop and use selecti on criteria to select indicators that consider: responsiveness to change; e ase of capture; community acceptance and involvement; interpretation; measu rement error; stability, frequency and cost of measurement; spatial scale i ssues; and mapping capability in space and through time. The appropriatenes s of indicators can be evaluated using a decision making system such as a m ultiobjective decision support system (MO-DSS, a method to assist in decisi on making from multiple and conflicting objectives); (v) involve stakeholde rs and the community in the definition of goals and setting benchmarking an d monitoring targets for sustainable farming; (vi) take preventive and corr ective/remedial action; (vii) evaluate effectiveness of actions taken; and (viii) revise indicators as part of a continual improvement principle desig ned to achieve best management practice for sustainable farming systems. The major recommendations are to: (i) implement the framework for resources (land, water and vegetation, economic, community and institution) benchmar king and monitoring, and integrate this process with current activities so that awareness, implementation and evolution of sustainable resource manage ment practices become normal practice in the grains industry; (ii) empower the grains industry to take the lead by using relevant sustainability indic ators to benchmark and monitor resources; (iii) adopt a collaborative appro ach by involving various industry, community, catchment management and gove rnment agency groups to minimise implementation time. Monitoring programs s uch as Waterwatch, Soilcheck, Grasscheck and Topcrop should be utilised; (i v) encourage the adoption of a decision making system by growers and indust ry representatives as a participatory decision and evaluation process. Widespread use of sustainability indicators would assist in validating and refining these indicators and evaluating sustainable farming systems. The i ndicators could also assist in evaluating best management practices for the grains industry.