Sustainability in Smart Farms: Its Impact on Performance

CITATION

De-Pablos-Heredero, C., Montes-Botella, J., & García-Martínez, A. (2018). Sustainability in Smart Farms: Its Impact on Performance. Sustainability, 10(6).

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ABSTRACT
In Spain, more than 30% of producers have run out of business because of a lack of
sustainability. They search for managerial guidelines that allow them to reach the farm’s economic
viability. When trying to improve the performance of farms and farming systems, a complementary
consideration of sustainability dimensions is required. The aim of this paper consists of offering
a complementary and integrative approach from the sustainability concept in four different
dimensions: economic; technological; organizational; and training in Manchego Cheese Protected
Designation of Origin (PDO). Sustainability through the putting into practice of some managerial
concepts has been able to reach better results and smarter farms. To perform this study, metrics to
analyze each of the mentioned dimensions of sustainability have been applied to a sample of 157 farms
with the main objective to identify the sustainability dimensions and its impacts on farm’s final results
promoting smarter farms. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) has been applied to measure the
impact of each dimension of sustainability on final farm’s results. Results reported that the farm’s
economic and organizational sustainability have been influenced by the returns on investment


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