What is Sustainability of Farms?

Abstract

This paper attempts to give answer to some important questions, on which there is no agreement among researchers, namely: „what is farm sustainability?“, „what is the relation between farm and agrarian sustainability?“, “which are critical factors of farms sustainability?”, and „how to assess farms sustainability level“. First, evolution of the “concept” of farm sustainability as alternative ideology, new strategy, system characteristics etc. is analyzed and discussed. On that base is suggested adequate definition of farm sustainability as ability of a particular farm to maintain its governance, economic, social and ecological functions in a long term. The final goal is better define farm sustainability and develop an efficient framework for assessing sustainability level of different type of farms.