Development of Indicators for Sustainable Rice Farming in Bangladesh: A Case Study with Participative Multi-Stakeholder Involvement

Indicators are increasingly recognized as an important decision aid tool to translate sustainability issue from theory into practice. However, indicator development for sustainable community development is rather successful than the agricultural sector due to methodological lacuna. The aim of this study is to develop a methodological framework for indicator development and an essential set of indicators of sustainable rice farming in Bangladesh by adopting participatory multi-stakeholders involvement approach. The study adopted informal discussion with academicians, literature review, online experts’ survey and focus group discussion with the farmers of three sub-districts that represent irrigated, rainfed lowland and upland rice growing ecosystems. These exercises yielded a set of indicators of three dimensions: economics (6), society (10) and environment (5), as well as a process of deriving indicator system with requisite information. The paper concludes that by employing a true participatory approach indicator development collectively decisive to extract an essential and representative set of indicators. Moreover, the study indicates the more significance of social indicators in promoting rice farming sustainability is Bangladesh. We highlight sustainability indicator development is a fairly demanding and challenging process. However, a blend with stakeholder’s knowledge and local experience enhances the questions of indicator’s applicability and practicability.