Best agricultural practices frameworks: a need for sustainability indicators in potato production

MANY agricultural production frameworks or schemes exist. Schemes related to the food chain usually aim at food - and product safety and are often limited to the post harvest links. They include hazard analysis at critical control points HACCP (e.g. storage and transport) and assure that regulations are met (e.g. maximum pesticide residue levels). Other schemes combine good agricultural practices from the sustainability point of view with food safety aspects through e.g. reduction of the risk of residues, hazard analysis and traceability. Moreover, the European Union ¿ through the Common Agricultural Policy and the general Food Law ¿ to a large extent determines the nature of the best agricultural practices schemes. The Union thereby focuses on two pillars: rural environment and market management of which cross compliance aid to farmers if they comply with EU environmental, food and occupational safety. This paper first presents the history of best agricultural practices schemes in Europe mainly, tools they use and their usefulness in certification and labelling. So far no proper tools were developed to assess whether the developed schemes are effective and efficient in achieving emission reduction of nutrients and biocides as formulated in governmental regulations. Other questions relate to the generic character and transportability of the schemes to other commodities and regions. A novel approach using sustainability indicators to evaluate current practices against critical and desired levels, taking into account regional and annual variation is discussed. The approach uses quantitative methods such as crop modelling to calculate resource use efficiencies and can be used in developing as well as industrialised countrie