Benchmarking agri-food sustainability certifications: Evidence from applying SAFA in the Ecuadorian banana agri-system

Summary

This paper uses the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture (SAFA) framework to assess the sustainbility achievement of Ecuadorian banana farms certified to Fairtrade and Organic. The researchers found that Organic and Fairtrade Certified bananas achieve greater sustainability performance in terms of governance, environmental, and economic dimensions. However, conventional banana farms scored higher in the social dimension. They conclude that SAFA has merits as a framework for assessing sustainability performance, but caution that factors such as farm size and farm processes affect SAFA scores.