Water energy food nexus approach for sustainability assessment at farm level: An experience from an intensive agricultural area in central Italy

•The Water Energy Food -WEF nexus has been suited as a sustainability assessment tool at farm level to assess agro-economic and environmental performance.•WEF is a very helpful tool to investigate the global sustainability of the agricultural systems.•Regulatory and economic instruments (i.e. agro-climatic-environmental payments) are not enough to solve a conflict between economy and environment.•New policy instruments should consider the multisectoral approach also at farm dimension, to achieve agriculture sustainability goals.