About the symposium

Currently it is widely acknowledged that the new context (including biophysical/environmental, technological, policy and socioeconomic challenges) relating to (sustainable) agricultural and rural development generates additional knowledge needs and calls for different ways to support learning and innovation. The need to address multifaceted and increasingly complex problems reinforces the requirement for new forms of research, learning and problem solving that integrates the varying perspectives and insights.

The cooperation of diverse experts and practitioners is required and various ‘cross-disciplinary’ forms of learning and research, taking into account the complexity of issues and the fragmentary nature of knowledge, needs to be employed. Such approaches accept local contexts and uncertainties, address both scientists’ and society’s diverse perceptions of an issue through communicative action and application in order to produce practically relevant knowledge.

Consequently, ideas about the generation, dissemination and use of innovations have also changed. The once dominant linear model, according to which scientists/researchers are in control of the production of technological devices, is nowadays severely challenged. Contemporary ‘interactive’ approaches emphasise the iterative, adaptive nature of innovation; systemic approaches such as AKIS and AIS have emerged. In this respect, the focus has shifted towards processes (instead of the emphasis on structures) with knowledge conceived as being constructed through social interaction. Thus particular attention is given to (social) co-ordination and networking. Moreover, to take into account power relationships and to avoid or overcome gaps (cognitive, information, managerial or system) and the resulting failures, growing attention is given to various types of (process) ‘intermediaries’ (facilitators, third parties, (knowledge/technology) brokers, bridging organisations, intermediaries, boundary organisations, etc).

Within these circumstances, Theme 1 aimed at exploring both the theoretical (concepts relevant to analyse innovation, knowledge and learning processes in the context of sustainable agricultural/rural development) and practical level (case studies exploring the results of relevant projects in different socio-cultural, economic and institutional contexts):

• The current state of art on innovation, knowledge and learning processes;
• Systemic and multi-stakeholder participatory strategies, methods and tools
• supporting network/ platform building, social learning and action, innovation and adjustment to policies in diverse AKIS/AIS configurations;
• Emerging ‘intermediation’ roles and advisors’ needs in terms of training (capacity building);
• The current methods to assess the impacts of innovation (participatory, external) including the impact pathway approach.

We invited participants from natural and social sciences particularly, those interested in knowledge needs and support for learning and innovation within agriculture, to contribute to workshops that addressed the issues in this theme.

This theme intends to create a platform for methodological discussions regarding the development of innovations, technologies and practices. Farming Systems research, compared with “classic” approaches, regularly aims at a more holistic rather than reductionist understanding of agriculture and rural development. On the other hand, as “systems” are always models or pictures of reality and resources are limited, there is always the challenge to reduce complexity of the real-world in a meaningful and feasible way. Research within this context calls for a meaningful and creative use of methods and methodologies in both the natural and social sciences, be it single-person or large-group research. In the past decades a wide spectrum of methods has been developed. Important questions are related to the “transformation of methods”, ie what are the challenges with respect to transformation of systems, and what does this mean for development or adaptation of methods?

From the beginning farming systems researchers intend to create solutions for “real-live” problems. Such research is often case-specific analysis and calls for contextualisation of solutions. The question then is how to generalise findings?

More and more, farming systems research is confronted with the societal demand to go even beyond research, contribute to the implementation of solutions and thus bring their concepts and results into practical use. Such research is demanding for integration of concepts, theories and results, and for cooperation and participation amongst researchers (interdisciplinarity) as well as between science and practice (transdisciplinarity).

We invited participants from both the natural sciences and social sciences to offer workshops in order to discuss theoretical and practical approaches, concepts and empirical cases in various fields and settings:

• The state of the art of quantitative and qualitative methods in ecologic, economic and social systems analysis. Contributions may vary from new approaches in carbon sequestration to modelling of land use changes; from cost-benefit analysis to economic multi-agent models; from social network analysis to PRA/PLA;
• Methods to improve access to information and information exchange;
• Approaches and methods that enable a dialogue amongst various stakeholders and promote mutual learning;
• Methods to include practical knowledge, of generation and dissemination of knowledge in a transdisciplinary research setting;
• Action-oriented methods to promote implementation of complex solutions.

A focus of discussion was the aspect of “integration”, by method triangulations and/or approaches and methodologies in process and project management: Ex ante approaches such as scenario analysis and modelling, in-process approaches such as (participatory) impact monitoring, or ex-post approaches of (participatory) monitoring and evaluation were also welcomed.

We are told that feeding the future world population will require a 60 percent increase in total agricultural production. This is set against the background of climate change, degraded natural resources (soil and water insecurity), and socioeconomic challenges (global economic drivers, competition, threatened rural livelihoods, social injustice). These multiple challenges require change (eg technical, social, cultural, technical, institutional) and have led to a range of responses with respect to developing sustainable agri-food systems which can produce food and maintain ecological functions (and in doing this deliver a multi-functional food system). These include approaches such as sustainable intensification, climate smart agriculture, ecological intensification, conservation agriculture, agro-ecological farming and organic farming. These share common principles, in that they aim to design more productive, sustainable production systems that save on inputs (pesticides, chemical fertilisers, water and fossil fuels), are less harmful to the environment, and so do not degrade ecosystem services. However, these approaches diverge significantly in other respects, notably they emerge from different paradigms (technically efficient, commercially-focused, large-scale agriculture versus socially responsible, community-centred agriculture often applying ecological principles). These are distinguished by the extent of capital investment, scale, tenure arrangements and labour inputs, but above all, values. The systems aligned to social development coexist more easily than others with rural development and other livelihood options (eg tourism, energy).

• This sub-theme aimed to examine these different pathways to sustainable food production (theoretical and empirical) and addressed questions such as:
• What are the different pathways of sustainable food production in different contexts?
• What theoretical perspectives exist to understand pathways of sustainable food production?
• What methods are best suited to understand pathways of sustainable food production?
• To what extent do these different pathways (current and future) diverge or converge/have synergies?
• What needs to change to move farming systems along pathways to sustainable food production and how do we measure this change?
• Is scale an issue - is it only large scale commercial farmers who seek efficiencies and smart farming (eg sustainable intensification)? Is it only smaller scale farmers/smallholders who can follow a ‘social’ model (eg community supported agriculture, agro-ecological farming)? Or are these becoming stereotypes that might constrain how we move forward?
• Is it important to debate the different values, objectives and reward systems that are embedded in these systems, and who gains and who “loses” from these different systems?

We invited participants from natural and social sciences, particularly those experienced in interdisciplinary approaches to contribute to workshops that addressed any of the issues and implications that related to this theme.

Globally, there is currently an unprecedented pace of change in the application of technology to support agriculture. There are many drivers of the change process, including improvements in techniques of animal and plant breeding, application of genetic modification, sustainable energy generation, development and use of robotics, remote data collection and monitoring systems, use of decision making tools and models, precision agriculture, use of drones and the increased use of Big Data. Many of these changes include some new technologies developed by scientists who previously have had limited connection with agriculture.

Whilst the potential benefits of these technologies are very easy to understand at a local scale, their potential impacts on farming systems are less well understood. For example, Blackmore (2014) has outlined plans to develop small robots that can intelligently detect if salad crops are ready for harvest using sensors and carry this out with minimum damage to the soil. If this technology was adopted on a wide scale, there is speculation that agricultural robots will eventually replace semi-skilled drivers and unskilled pickers. However, it has been suggested that an equal number of highly skilled agricultural robot engineers will be needed to service the new technology. There may also be a reduced need for management decisions on the ground as the technology also automates some of these processes. Potentially there are gains to certain sectors of the agricultural labour market, benefits to the environment and advantages to the consumer in the form of cheaper prices. However, this is at the expense of employment amongst both the least qualified individuals within the agricultural workforce and also individuals who possess higher level skills such as agronomists.

Such difficulties in predicting the outcomes of such developments in technology are further exacerbated by differences in the scale and type of farming operations, lack of standard methods of quantification, geographical location and government policy with regard to technological development. There are also implications in terms of side-lining/under valuing (and ultimately losing) land managers’ local and experiential knowledge which some argue is irreplaceable.

This theme was an opportunity to engage in a constructive dialogue between farmers, educators and scientists about the systemic impacts of these new technologies within new social, political and environmental contexts and to explore the questions that they raise for research policy and practice and addressed questions such as:

• Can we classify new technologies more effectively?
• Who are the beneficiaries and losers following the adoption of new technologies in agriculture? How can we quantify this in a meaningful way?
• What are the effects of farming scale on the uptake and application of new technology? Are there any common themes between different types of farmers?
• Does new technology make agriculture more or less sustainable? Will technology improve food security?
• To what extent can we effectively model the impacts of a new technology in agriculture? Are the same models applicable for a range of new technologies?
• Will new technology facilitate significant changes within rural societies and their structures?
• What are the implications for land managers’ learning and experiential knowledge production?

We invited participants from natural resources, engineering, human and social sciences, particularly those experienced in interdisciplinary approaches, to contribute to workshops that addressed any of the issues and implications that related to this theme.

Agriculture is characterised nowadays by the diversity of pathways (organic farming, integrated farming, precision farming etc) that seek to combine a more sustainable use of resources with good economic and sociological conditions for the development of rural areas. These farming systems may be combined or compete at different levels, international, national or regional. The question addressed in this subtheme is about the intended and unintended effects of policy, governance and institutions on the convergence or divergence between trajectories of production systems. Do they enable a co-existence of different systems, or do they reinforce the domination of specific systems over others?

Many individuals and groups strive to bring about changes in relation to food, farming, rural areas and environment. Such changes concern livelihoods, wellbeing, communities, management of wastes, food, energy, technology, food security, productivity and biodiversity.

Interconnections among such changes or transformations are well recognised. As Donald Schön observed over forty years ago, transformations influence one another and the transformation of a system as a whole influences the context in which each local system experiences its own transformations. In recent years, as evident from IFSA’s symposia over the past two decades, there has been increasing emphasis on collective multi-level learning processes and multi-stakeholder dialogue processes to bring about transformations at the level of ‘whole systems’ – for instance in relation to (i) catchment-based approaches to address issues of water scarcity, flooding and pollution and (ii) networks of local and regional food production and distribution.

A substantial discourse has also developed on what kinds of governance, policy and institutions enable and constrain such learning in moving towards collective action. It is this latter area that this sub-theme specifically wants to address. Different farming systems might need different forms of learning that could be supported by the adoption of different public policies such as technology transfer for precision farming and collective learning for agro-ecology.

Policies and institutions designed for one purpose often end up overseeing another unless governance is adaptive and responsive to potentially rapid changes in conditions.

• Workshops in this sub theme addressed questions such as:
• Why do some initiatives (eg relating to organic farming, farmers’ markets, farming and wildlife or land care) succeed in scaling up from a local level whereas others fail?
• How do services such as advisory services support innovation and orient the innovation choices?
• What kinds of governance enable systemic and adaptive responses to climate change?
• Which aspects of EU policy and legislation have enabled farming communities to do ‘better things’ (second-order change) rather than doing things better (first order change)?
• What kinds of public policy (incentives and subsidies, regulatory frameworks, R&D planning) can help build sustainable food systems - or further reinforce industrial agriculture?

We invited participants who are interested in the development, application and interaction of policies and governance within agricultural systems, to contribute to workshops that addressed issues and implications that related to this theme.