Sustainability of the farming systems : global issues, modelling approaches and policy implications

The interest related to agricultural sustainability in general, and farming systems in particular, gained recently in importance on the research agenda of the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Directorate-General Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Within the series of activities related to positioning the Institute with respect to this topic, two expert workshops were organised in 2004 and 2005. This report brings together the contributed papers the speakers to the two workshops were invited to submit in support of their oral presentation. The papers reflect the opinions of the corresponding authors and do not represent the official position of the European Commission.