Building sustainable rural futures - The added value of systems approaches in times of change and uncertainty

Background

Since 1994 the European Group of the IFSA has been organising a biannual Symposium. The aim is to offer a plattform for researchers and practitioners who seek and inter- and transdisciplinary dialogue on the vast range of issues relevant to farmers and other stakeholders of rural areas.

Themes of the 2010 Symposium

The events in the second half of the year 2008 have shown that systems we once thought behaved in a linear and predictable manner, are in fact characterized by non-linearity, uncertainty, and prone to dramatic changes. Farmers and other stakeholders in rural areas need to develop the capacity to cope with, adapt to and transform these dynamics. Although there is much talk of systemic approaches, their application to farming and rural settings are still in their infancy. Indeed, the feedback loops in family farming systems and the dynamics of rural networks are still poorly understood. The IFSA Symposium aims at debating innovative approaches to address these, giving special attention to following five key themes:

1. Knowledge systems, learning and collective action
2. Transition, resilience, and adaptive management
3. Energy production, CO2 sink and climate change
4. Sustainable food systems
5. Landscape and rural land use

Registration

Registration for the IFSA 2010 has started. The early-bird rate (15 Jan - 1 May) is 400 Euro per participant, 350 Euro for students. After 2 May 2010 registration will be 450 Euro. The registration fee includes all sessions, coffee break, lunch, regional evening on Sun. 4 July and the full-day field trips on Tue. 6 July. It does not include the gala diner on Mon. 5 July.

We have listed some hotels and a student hostel which offer a special IFSA2010 rate if rooms are booked until 30 April. Participants are kindly asked to book their own accomodation.

Setup of the Symposium

The symposium programme will start on Sunday 4 July with an opening plenary, where Richard Bawden, Marianne Cerf and Ray Ison will present their insights on the added value of systems approaches and the contributions of farming systems thinking. Monday will be reserved to workshop sessions and Tuesday to field trips. The final day, Wed. 7 July will start with sessions and culminate in a closing plenary where Hans Herren and a panel will discuss the current status of the Int. Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Download an overview of the programme

Programme of the Opening Plenary

Programme of the Closing Plenary

Proceedings of the IFSA 2010

Traditionally, the IFSA proceedings include full papers that have been thoroughly reviewed and revised before the Symposium. All papers accepted at one of the workshops will be published on the website as on-line proceedings (i.e. formatted as a book, with page numbers, and an ISBN-Number, see e.g. the proceedings from the IFSA 2008).
The publication in the proceedings does not preclude publication in an internationl Journal. Indeed, selected papers presented at the IFSA 2010 will be published as a Special Issue of an international Journal. Some workshop convenors might also choose to publish papers from their workshop in a book
This ensures that the papers in the proceedings are of high quality (since they have been peer-reviewed). Also, they are easily accessible to researchers world-wide.

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