Footprint of Agriculture

Lithuania is the only one of the Baltic States to run an ecological deficit (Global Footprint Network 2021). According to Lithuanian strategic documents (LAEI 2016), the agriculture sector remains one of the priority sectors and performs an important economic, environmental, and social role. However, the Lithuanian agricultural sector experiences numerous challenges in achieving environmental sustainability. This paper contributes to the practice by providing a tool for agri-environmental performance assessment at farm level using simple, sound, and transparent Agri-environmental Footprint Index (AFI) construction procedures, and the results of its application are presented through a case study in Lithuania for the years 2016 and 2017. The set of 12 indicators customized to Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) system data was devised to quantify the environmental pressures, which can assist in developing similar indicators or can be adopted in other studies. The findings for Lithuanian family farms indicate a good level of agri-environmental performance as over two-thirds of the sample farms were defined by medium AFI levels. Nevertheless, more than one-tenth of farms achieved a low level of AFI, and these farms require more stimulus and policy interventions for better environmental performance.