Assessing governance aspect of agrarian sustainability in Bulgaria

In Bulgaria practically there are no comprehensive assessments of the "newly" suggested governance pillar of agrarian sustainability. This article tries to fill the gap and present a holistic framework for understanding and assessing the governance sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture. The novel system for sustainability evaluation comprising 5 Principles 19 Criteria, and 22 Indicators and References Values is applied in a large-scale study for assessing the governance sustainability at national, sectoral, regional, eco-system and farm levels. Multi-dimensional assessment indicates that the Overall Governance Sustainability of Bulgarian agriculture is at "Good" but very close to "Satisfactory" level. There is a considerable differentiation in the levels and critical factors of Integral Governance sustainability of agro-systems of different type. Results on the integral agrarian sustainability assessment based on micro (farm) and macro (statistical, etc.) data show some discrepancies which have to be taken into consideration in the analysis and interpretation, while assessment indicators, methods and data sources further improved.