Changing European farming system for a better future: New visions for rural areas

The proceedings of the 7th European IFSA Symposium (held in Wageningen, The Netherlands) were edited by Hans Langeveld and Niels Röling and published in 2006 as a book by Wageningen Academic Publishers (ISBN 978-90-8686-002-9), 480 pp.
Due to copyright restrictions, we cannot offer the individual papers for download.

Book review
by Norman Breuer in Agricultural Systems 97: 167-168.
Book review by Karen Eilers in Livestock Science 111: 271-272.

Table of content
General introduction

Workshop 1:Learning as process, convened by Egon Noe, Sri Sriskandaraja and Marianne Cerf -- Trying to understand one's role in the new learning demands of multifunctional land use systems, as they work with different actors adn tools at different scales

Workshop 2:Agriculture, rural land use and sustainable development, convened by Luigi Omodei Zorini, Philippe Perrier-Cornet and Ken Giller -- Discussing adaptation of farming systems that create a dialogue with non-agricultural enterprises and institutions, negotiating trade-offs between various goals as they strive for synergy and complementarity with urban centres.

Workshop 3:The future of farming, convened by Colin Newsham, Rebecka Milestad and Benoit Dedieu -- Defining what activities constitute farming, and who defines this. Discussing what farmers think of their (future) role, farming being linked to rural systems, food chains and ecological services.

Workshop 4:Agricultural knowledge and innovation systems in transition, convened by Kirsten von der Heiden, Cees Leeuwis and Milan Slavik -- Analysing approaches and services of research, extension and education systems that answer to new challenges, problems and opportunities and that take on new educational and communicative roles.

Workshop 5:Managing natural resources, convened by Christ Stoate, Jacques Baudry and Andrea Knierim -- Discussing natural resource management (NRM) and linkages between land use systems and landscape functions, evaluating land use systems, involving farmers and other stakeholders (not all living in the area, not all active in NRM).

Final workshop:Perspectives for participative systems oriented research