Contabilidad agropecuaria y sostenibilidad ambiental

Abstract

The measurement and evaluation of the sustainability of the agricultural sector, requires abandoning the traditional accounting system, towards an information system that is consistent with the exploitation and alteration of nature and the environment; without losing the economic notion of the value of the agricultural business. In fact, the accounting of agricultural activity is carried out in accordance with commercial and industry accounting principles, ignoring nature as a generator of value of "biological goods" and that agricultural activity corresponds to the exploitation and not to production, since that man's work does not produce goods or products of plant or animal origin, but rather adapts land spaces to use these for natural consumption or transformation in industry. This conception related to the reality of the exploitation of nature, led to the accounting design for the sector, which seeks to show the economic and environmental information generated in agricultural, livestock and forestry activities, as well as the establishment of a reasonable method for the valuation of crops and rural ecosystems in rest or conservation, which makes it possible to define the approximate value of the agricultural production units and the business, thus avoiding the exercise of expert opinions in the valuation of rural farms. It is highlighted that for the purpose, agricultural accounting should be understood as the record of economic information of the businesses carried out by the productive units of the rural sector, from the exploitation of nature (biological assets: domestic flora and fauna) and use of natural assets (soil, water), which implies the valuation of biological assets in accordance with concepts of economic-environmental valuation and in coherence with the dynamics of the economy.

Key Words: Agricultural Accounting, Environmental valuation, biological assets, Agricultural inventories, Natural capital exploitation