Exploring close consumer-producer links to maintain and enhance on-farm biodiversity

This paper deals with the question of whether local selling of farm products improves on-farm biodiversity. In contrast to the main agricultural trend of farms specialising and increasing in size in response to the national and global markets, increasing numbers of Swedish farmers are instead diverting their efforts towards selling at local markets. Based on a study of six farms, the paper explores the nature of diversity on these farms and identifies factors supporting diversity. The study shows that farmers who interact with consumers are encouraged to diversify their production. The actual crops and varieties grown are determined by a combination of the natural conditions prevailing on the farm and the conditions created by the farmer in terms of marketing strategy for the products

Building Resilience through Farmers’ Experiments in Organic Agriculture: Examples from Eastern Austria

Farmers have always lived in changing environments where uncertainty and disturbances are inevitable. Therefore, farmers need the ability to adapt to change in order to be able to maintain their farms. Experimentation is one way for farmers to learn and adapt, and may be a tool to build farm resilience. Farmers’ experiments, as defined in this paper, are activities where something totally or partially new is introduced at the farm and the feasibility of this introduction is evaluated. The theoretical framework applied to study farmers’ experiments is the concept of resilience. Resilience is the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with change, and is a framework used to assess complex systems of interactions between humans and ecosystems. This paper explores to which extent farmers’ experimentation can help build farm resilience. In addition to arguments found in the literature, five organic farms in Eastern Austria are used to illustrate this potential. The farmers were interviewed in 2007 and 2008. The respective farmers all worked fulltime on their farms, were between 34 and 55 years old, and owned farms between 15 and 76 ha. These farmers experimented in ways that enhance resilience – at the farm and in the region. The outcome of experiments can be management changes, new insights, or technology that can be passed on and potentially be built into education and advisory institutions. To encourage farmers’ experiments, it is important to develop conditions that support farmers in their experimenting role

Special issue: Innovations in farming systems approaches: Introduction

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Climate Change Challenge (3C) and Social-Economic-Ecological Interface-Building—Exploring Potential Adaptation Strategies for Bio-resource Conservation and Livelihood Development: Epilogue

Climate change is arguably the single most dominant environmental threat facing humanity. Its manifestations, particularly through rising temperatures, changing rainfall, sea-level rise and increasing droughts and floods have the potential to adversely impact natural ecosystems (such as forests, grasslands, rivers and oceans) and socioeconomic systems (such as food production, fisheries and coastal settlements). This is adding additional stresses to the ecosystem services which form a substantial source of income to the rural inhabitants. It is most proximate and inextricably linked to well-being, development and economic growth which are part of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which ran from 2000 to 2015

Introduction to section 3 - The future of farming

International audienc

Building Resilience through Farmers’ Experiments in Organic Agriculture: Examples from Eastern Austria

Farmers have always lived in changing environments where uncertainty and disturbances are inevitable. Therefore, farmers need the ability to adapt to change in order to be able to maintain their farms. Experimentation is one way for farmers to learn and adapt, and may be a tool to build farm resilience. Farmers’ experiments as defined in this paper are activities where something totally or partially new is introduced at the farm and the feasibility of this introduction is evaluated. The theoretical framework applied to study farmers’ experiments is the concept of resilience. Resilience is the capacity of social-ecological systems to cope with change, and is a framework used to assess complex systems of interactions between humans and ecosystems. This paper explores to which extent farmers’ experimentation can help build farm resilience. In addition to arguments found in the literature, five organic farms in Eastern Austria are used to illustrate this potential. The farmers were interviewed in 2007 and 2008. The respective farmers all worked fulltime on their farms, were between 34 and 55 years old, and owned farms between 15 and 76 ha. These farmers experimented in ways that enhance resilience – at the farm and in the region. The outcome of experiments can be management changes, new insights, or technology that can be passed on and potentially be built into education and advisory institutions. To encourage farmers’ experiments, it is important to develop conditions that support farmers in their experimenting role