The dairy industry can contribute to global food security in a sustainable way by efficiently converting milk into dairy ingredients and products, even though they are polluting on a large scale. In this context, this study aimed to conduct a systematic literature review on sustainable indicators and dairy industries. The methodology used has a qualitative and quantitative approach and its technical procedure was the systematic literature review. The bases of journals consulted, using the keywords “sustainability indicator” and “dairy industry” which resulted in 130 valid scientific articles. The main results show that the sustainability indicators in the dairy industry are emerging and lacking research; being found seven papers, that highlight 12 indicators of the environmental, 11 of the social and eight economic dimensions, that may be considered fragile and initial. The studied problems are related to wastewater treatment methods, electric power consumption, efficiency of the industrial plant, among others, and the benefits on the theme are related to solutions to the difficulties, such as electricity reduction, sustainable practices. Among others, it is concluded that the dairy industries address the sustainability theme since 2011, with an ambiguous trend, being found evidence of the fragility of the sustainability indicators was found, mainly in the initial stage of their conception, when considering holistic approach (triple bottom line).

Different segments of society have shown interest in understanding the effects of human activities on ecosystems. To this end, the aim of this article is to analyze the scientific literature on the application of the Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) conceptual model to identify the parameters used to describe the causal interactions that occur between agriculture and aquatic ecosystems at the watershed scale. In this way, descriptive indicators were established for the data of 63 publications collected through Scopus, Web of Science, and Science Direct. The results confirm the great heterogeneity in the interpretation of the pressure, state, and impacts components. Part of this discrepancy can be attributed to the use of different indicators, as the model is flexible and generic. Overall, the DPSIR is a tool used not only in the scientific field, but also has demonstrated its potential to guide public policy formulation, planning, and decision-making in water resource management.

Conservation agriculture (CA) is recognized as a promising crop management strategy for sustainable agricultural intensification. The objective of this study was to evaluate CA cropping systems for rainfed maize as an alternative to the traditional tillage-based cropping systems (CT) in the context of family farms, using a multi-criteria model that represents the point of view of farmers. Farmers considered several aspects for evaluating the cropping systems, thatwere systematized in the model through five criteria (with sub-criteria): (a) costs; (b) yield; (c) labour; (d) human health and environment; and (e) production risks. CA did not differ from CT for the ‘costs’ criterion but was superior for the ‘yield’ and ‘labour’ criteria. In contrast, CT obtained better ratings for the criteria ‘human health and environment’ and ‘production risks’. Considering all criteria, CA was better appraised than CT. However, a new local policy measure that subsidizes the hiring of mechanized tillage services overturns this outcome, indicating the importance of exogenous factors. Overall, the participatory processes in building the model allowed us to better understand the reasons of adoption or non-adoption of CA by small-scale farmers in the tropics.

The purpose of this article was to accomplish a literature review to analyze the scientific studies which were based on Multicriteria Methods to study water resources management in agriculture. Scientific production indicators were established for the subject, through a descriptive analysis of 519 publications data set generated by the Scopus database search engine. The publications were refined applying several criteria resulting in 30 articles considered to be the most important to interpret the factors that detail the researched topic. The analyzed scientific studies also show that the structuring of multicriteria models is designed to better understand the problem or the process of decision making rather than to make the decisions itself. Furthermore, to the water resources management field, they provide a way to discuss and deal with problems like water distribution and pollution. An aggregating function along with a compensatory approach is used in most publications. Although participatory techniques were not the approach used by most studies, its potential was recognized for dealing with problems such as water management resources.

O trabalho analisa riscos econômicos e financeiros para assentados rurais, através da combinação entre uma análise tradicional de negócios e uma análise simulada de resultados, visando promover o arbítrio de uma decisão melhor embasada. A pesquisa avaliou uma agroindústria, suprida por um sistema produtivo de leite em um assentamento rural, introduzindo elementos de aprofundamento a análise, na forma de simulações. O enfoque na produção e processamento de leite, como alternativa para um assentamento rural, foi projetado relacionando as variáveis de preços e custos das atividades. A construção do modelo simulado foi estruturada a partir do Valor Presente Líquido (VPL), submetido a simulações pelo método de Monte Carlo. As variáveis simuladas foram acolhidas por análise de sensibilidade, e os resultados obtidos no modelo demonstraram a probabilidade de 39,7% para um VPL negativo. Os elementos encontrados mostram que avaliações econômicas de sistemas simulados podem compor importantes ferramentas de apoio a projetos de investimentos de cunho coletivo em assentamentos rurais.