Cattle farming systems in the Peneda mountain: a tentative assessment of sustainability
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Sustainable development, although recent as a concept, is used in several fields such as tourism, energy and transports, as well as in agriculture, namely in livestock farming at regional level. As livestock farming systems in the Peneda mountain are based on the shared use (common lands) of animals’ feeding areas, it becomes very difficult to assess each farmer’s share of responsibility in parameters like nitrogen or pesticides. We have carried out a survey and a follow-up for three years (from 2002 to 2004) in six farms chosen according to the typology built by Simões (2000, 2004). The main objective of the survey was to assess the farmers’ management practices towards achieving a better valorisation of their products under the existing constraints. We built 11 indicators that can measure social, economic and environmental issues in order to assess the sustainable evolution of a small region. As a conclusion, we may say that it is possible to assess the evolution of local sustainable development by means of indicators built on information from a sample of farms, since these farms are representative of that region.