On-farm assessment of the sustainability of small-scale dairy systems with three methods based on indicators

Small-scale dairy systems are important contributors to national milk supplies in many areas of the world, and an option to ameliorate rural poverty in developing countries. In Mexico, they comprise over 78% of dairy farms. These systems must be sustainable in order to persist in the future. By applying several methods to assess the sustainability of farms, valuable information is collected on the practical, operational, and systemic requirements, as well as an insight into the difficulties in the use of each tool in practice. The objective was to assess the sustainability of small-scale dairy systems during the rainy season. Three methods were compared (IDEA, RISE, and SAFA) to evaluate their ability to deal with such systems in the Mexican context. Ten small-scale dairy farms were assessed from June to November 2018. Monthly semi-structured interviews were applied to collect economic, social, and environmental information. The three methods met criteria for on-farm assessments, with no large differences among them. The IDEA method was more applicable in the context of small-scale dairy systems because its indicators may be collected on-farm and were easy to measure. RISE requires more specialized technical information not always available at the small-scale farm level, and SAFA covered the largest number of indicators but is better suited for large-scale systems. The IDEA and RISE methods are adequate tools to assess the sustainability of small-scale dairy systems. The mean overall sustainability score over the three methods for the 10 assessed farms was 55.3±5.7 over 100. This medium level of sustainability indicates areas of opportunity to enhance the sustainability of small-scale dairy systems.