Agricultural statistics: for sustainability indicators at farm level[Statistiques agricoles : pour des indicateurs de durabilité au niveau de l'exploitation]

Which are the aims in view and the concepts used by the design of the Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI)? Which institutional contexts in Europe and more particularly in France do register their development? Which problems of definition and measurement do they pose? Lastly, how is their use taking place with regards to the new orientations of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)? This article first of all carries out a review of the concepts implied in the proposed SDI, up to now. Then, describing their integration with the European and national statistical systems, this text underlines their contribution to the production of environmental standards within the socio-economic framework of development strategies, through examples related to the urban and rural planning, the management of the water resource, the quality of soils, the management of waste and the exposure to the risks. In the national context described as subordinated to the European Community constraints, this paper shows how the measurement of the farm holding sustainability can take place within the current context of the CAP reform. Lastly, this text identifies the statistical challenges issued from the short and average terms, pleading for the development of individual sustainability indicators legitimated by the procedural rationality of communication.