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Stakeholder engagement in prioritizing sustainability assessment themes for smallholder coffee production in Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2016

Brian Robert Ssebunya ,
Erwin Schmid ,
Piet van Asten ,
Christian Schader ,
Christine Altenbuchner  and
Matthias Stolze
Brian Robert Ssebunya*
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse, CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland. Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Feistmantelstrasse 4, 1180 Vienna, Austria.
Erwin Schmid
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Feistmantelstrasse 4, 1180 Vienna, Austria.
Piet van Asten
Affiliation:
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), P.O. Box 7878 Kampala, Uganda.
Christian Schader
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse, CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland.
Christine Altenbuchner
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Feistmantelstrasse 4, 1180 Vienna, Austria.
Matthias Stolze
Affiliation:
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL), Ackerstrasse, CH-5070 Frick, Switzerland.
*
*Corresponding author: brian.ssebunya@fibl.org
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Abstract

Many sustainability assessment frameworks have been developed in recent years, but translating them into practical tools to guide decision making remains challenging. By engaging coffee stakeholders in Uganda, we demonstrate a process of translating the widely-accepted framework for Sustainability Assessments of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA), developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), to smallholder production systems. Stakeholders prioritized the sustainability themes in terms of relevance and feasibility, and subsequently identified relevant sub-themes. We find that the structure and scope of some generally accepted themes need appropriate modifications in order to address the social and structural heterogeneity of smallholder production systems. Although importance and feasibility rankings significantly vary within and between stakeholder groups, governance and economic themes are commonly perceived as very important though equally the least feasible for smallholders. Thus, the inclusion of the ‘farmer-group’ structure as part of the sustainability assessment criteria is perceived as necessary especially toward achieving governance-related goals. These findings emphasize the need of engaging stakeholders in defining locally adapted sustainability assessment criteria.

Keywords

sustainability themesSAFAstakeholder engagementsmallholder productioncoffeeUganda
Type
Research Papers
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2017 , pp. 428 - 445
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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