Bulletin UASVM Horticulture, 69(2)/2012 Print ISSN 1843-5254; Electronic ISSN 1843-5394 Assessment of the Sustainability Degree of Agricultural Holdings in Macroregion 1 Using the IDEA Method Camelia GAVRILESCU 1) , Camelia TOMA 1) , Crina TURTOI 1) 1) Institute of Agricultural Economics, Romanian Academy, Calea 13 Septembrie, no.13, sector 5, 050711 Bucharest, Romania; cami_gavrilescu@yahoo.com. Abstract. Assessing the sustainability degree in quantitative terms has been attempted in various ways, from different points of view – mainly environmental or social. The IDEA method (Indicators of Agricultural Holding Sustainability) is a method by which the sustainability of agricultural holdings is evaluated in a complex way, simultaneously from three points of view: environmental, social and economic. The method comprises 10 sustainability components, grouped by three levels: agro- ecological, socio-territorial and socio-economic, summing up 41 complex indicators, consisting of over 100 aggregate indicators. Depending on the scores obtained by each component and at each level (the maximum score at each level is 100), the sustainability level of each holding can be estimated, for each component and level separately, and finally for the holding as an entity as such. The paper is presenting the results of the evaluation of the sustainability in some agricultural holdings interviewed in counties in Macroregion 1, as part of a comprehensive survey in 800 farms all over Romania. Keywords: agro-ecological, socio-territorial, economic indicators INTRODUCTION Many authors have defined and studied sustainability from the ecological, economical and social point of view. Environmental sustainability has been defined in terms of global ecosystem or natural capital stock conservation as environmental goods stock which is providing a flow of useful goods and services for the society (Goodland, 1995; Herdt and Steiner, 1995). Up to the 1970s, output growth has been the main concern of the agricultural actors. Researchers in agronomy studied mainly the effects of increased use of man-made inputs on the functioning of agro-ecosystems productivity. Since 1970, intensification of production techniques caused increasing pollution. Therefore, limiting the impact on the environment became increasingly important in agricultural research. More recently, concerns intensified about the soil – the loss in its quality function of natural capital source for agriculture, as a result of erosion phenomena, of depletion of beneficial invertebrates - predators and parasites -, and of decrease in soil organic matter. These scientific concerns have led to proposals of various methods and methodologies to assess the impact of agriculture on the environment (Bonny, 1994; Hansen, 1996; Hertwich et al., 1997, Girardin et al., 2000). Some methods are based upon sets of indicators and have been developed for a wide range of users, especially for farmers, for local communities and for local, regional, national and global decision-makers (OECD, 1999; Vilain, 1999; Vilain, 2008; Girardin et al., 2004). Of all methods proposed, tested and implemented in the European research for the last 25 years, 12 have been selected, compared and analyzed by Van der Werf and Petit in a study in 2002. 122