Farm and landscape level variables as indicators of sustainable land-use in the Argentine Inland-Pampa

Sustainable land-use evaluation in agricultural systems needs to accommodate the landscape mosaic. Landscape characteristics, together with data gathered by farmers, were used to classify farms according to a scale related to sustainable land-use. The value of this scale as a tool enabling land managers to use information recorded by farmers and to diagnose land-use sustainability as a means of improving their land-management strategies was evaluated. Sustainability values were not related to any landscape in particular; farms with high sustainability could be found adjacent to farms with low sustainability. This indicates two important facts. First, differing management alternatives were mainly controlled by human decisions that in some way disregarded the ecological systems where the farms were located. Second, the observed variability demonstrates that there is room for improvement, especially by reducing inputs, without harming stability or productivity. An examination of the effect of incoming technologies on sustainability suggests other variables that could be considered in the calculation of farm sustainability indexes, such as those reflecting crop water-use efficiency, soil physical and biological characteristics, biological indicators of wildlife status, and intensification of grazing or harvesting of biomass for human and animal use.