Frédéric Zahm – Agro-economist

March 2021

Coordinated by Frédéric Zahm, work on the IDEA method (Indicateurs de durabilité des Exploitations Agricoles) has resulted in the new version 4. This assesses farms’ sustainability using 53 indicators based on a dual approach: a 1st assessment based on the 3 dimensions of sustainability (agro-ecological, socio-territorial and economic) (and a 2nd assessment based on 5 sustainable system attributes (productive and reproductive capacity of goods and services, autonomy, territorial anchorage, robustness and global responsibility). Initially developed at the request of the Ministry of Agriculture to provide its teaching establishments and educational farms with a tool to support the transition towards sustainability in agriculture, the method is now used in agricultural consultancy and has been deployed in a number of public action schemes such as the EPA2, Ecophyto2, CAP, Egalim law, GIEE, HVE, local authority territorial action, etc. The IDEA method has thus become one of the 4 most widely used methods in the European Union, as well as in Africa, North Africa and Central and Latin America, for assessing farms’ sustainability and supporting their transition.