In order to reduce the pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources, the Walloon region has established a Programme of Sustainable Nitrogen Management in Agriculture. This legislation encompasses all compulsory measures mentioned in the European Directive known as ‘Nitrate Directive’ (Directive 91/676/EEC), but its scope is larger, as it defines obligations regarding storage and management of livestock manure outside vulnerable zones. The Walloon legislation is the result of a long negotiation process and represents a common understanding between the Public powers, the farmer’s unions and the water producers, purifiers and distributors. It was launched in October, 2002. Three complementary levels are concerned: the field, the whole farm and the region. At field level, the objective is to reduce nitrate losses through leaching during winter. The farmer must put in place some good agriculture practices, particularly regarding authorised doses and periods of application of nitrogen fertilisers. At the whole farm level the farmer must maintain a balance between the organic nitrogen compound to be applied and his application capacity (i.e.: the applicable quantity legally authorised). Every year, the soil link rate (LS) of each farm is calculated by the government administration, taking into account several factors: the number of animals on the farm, average values of nitrogen production per animal category, agricultural land surface available and authorised doses of nitrogen organic compound applicable. In vulnerable zones, organic nitrogen application is limited to 80 kg N/ha on arable land and 210 kg N/ha on grassland. Outside these vulnerable zones, the amount of livestock manure applied is limited to 120 kg N/ha on arable land and 210 kg N/ha on grassland. The organic nitrogen in excess of the application capacity must be transferred to other farms that are able to value it.

Sustainability is now regarded as a crucial property of agricultural systems and its evaluation has become a main challenge for scientists, policy makers and farmers. In the last decade, different sets of indicators have been designed both at national and international levels. Meanwhile, more practical environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools have been developed at the farm level . However, none of these indicator sets can be used at both levels. Further, most of these initiatives focus only on environmental aspects of sustainability and do not take socio-economic aspects into consideration. Indicator selection does not always fit in a consistent and comprehensive framework, although there is a strong need to integrate sustainability indicators in order to facilitate comparison and assessment. Finally, few of these works relate to Belgian agriculture, which up til now lacked a tool for assessing the sustainability of its farms. This project aims at providing a framework for assessing sustainability levels in Belgian agricultural systems (SAFE) that overcomes the deficiencies mentioned above. This is achieved by: 1. Considering the concept of agricultural sustainability in a holistic manner – SAFE accounts for all three pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic & social). 2. Developing (a) a consistent approach for defining sustainability principles and criteria and (b) a core list of sustainability indicators identified through a standardized selection procedure. The ‘SAFE selection procedure’ is a flexible scientific process that builts on knowledge and experience of numerous experts. 3. Ensuring that the tool remains as easy as possible to interpret and thus to use, thanks to the integration procedure of sustainability indicators and the graphic expression of the results. 4. Building on a generic methodology. Though the set of selected indicators presented in this report is specific to the Belgian agricultural context, the method developed for the construction of the SAFE tool can be transferred for assessing sustainability levels in other geographical (Europe, world, …) and sectorial contexts. In particular, principles and criteria defined in SAFE have a universal value. 5. Taking action at three spatial levels, depending on the scale of application: (1) parcel (2) farm or (3) watershed for surface water-related issues, landscape/ecosystem for some soil and biodiversity related issues, and administrative units (region, state) for some environmental as well as for some socio-economic issues.