The limited resilience of agricultural and food systems, and of rural communities, has become an important concern in rural and agricultural policy. However, while the term has been heavily theorised and discussed, particularly in the natural and environmental sciences, it is sufficiently ambiguous to support divergent and even contradictory policy goals and farmers' strategies. This paper focuses on the more encompassing notion of social-ecological resilience and contends that among the causes of this divergence are the disparate spatial and temporal scales used to assess and plan enhancing resilience. Based on empirical evidence, we show that strategies that may increase farmers' abilities to persist in a difficult economic environment may undermine the resilience of the wider region, while decisions that enhance farmers' resilience in the short term may lock them onto a path that weakens their future resilience. Using case studies from 14 different countries across Europe and beyond, we address two main questions. Firstly, how the notion of resilience is being operationalised at a farm or regional level. That is to say, what are the different strategies that farmers, rural residents and other decision-makers in rural areas are using to enhance resilience? Secondly, we look at how the outcomes of implementing these strategies vary according to spatial and temporal factors.

This paper explores the connections between farm modernisation, rural development and the resilience of agricultural and rural systems. The paper starts by ascertaining why agricultural and food systems need to change systemically. Evidence from case studies in fourteen countries is used to explore the possibilities for, and drivers and limitations of systemic change in four thematic areas: the resilience of farms and rural areas; prosperity and well-being; knowledge and innovation, and; the governance of agriculture and rural areas. In each area, we identify a major mismatch between visions and strategies on the one hand, and market developments, policy measures and outcomes on the other. The first theme is of growing concern as there has been an observable decrease in the social-ecological resilience of farms and of rural communities in recent decades. The second theme emerges as important as the concentration of production in some regions or some farms is directly linked to the marginalisation of others. The third theme illustrates that local farmer-driven innovations can teach us much, especially since farmers focus on efficiently using the resources available to them, including their location-specific experiential knowledge. Through the final theme we show that informal networks can balance different interests and approaches, which is essential for integrated rural development strategies and projects. Our findings in these four thematic areas have implications for the strategic frameworks and policy of the EU (and beyond) and future research agendas. We explicitly draw these out. The 14 case studies show that practitioners, grassroots initiatives and pilot programmes are already generating a wealth of experiences and knowledge that could be fruitfully used to inform higher-level policy development. The paper concludes that systemic change requires more critical reflection of conventional wisdom and approaches, and openness to ideas and practices that are outside the mainstream.

This paper explores the relations between agricultural modernization and sustainable agriculture. The point of departure is the observable decrease in the sustainability and social–ecological resilience of agricultural and food systems. We ask where, precisely, the notions of agricultural modernization and agricultural sustainability contradict each other. In more concrete terms we ask what forms of modernization makes agriculture more (or less) sustainable. Our literature review shows that while the term ‘sustainable agriculture’, has been extensively debated, the term ‘agricultural modernization’, while carrying a positive and forward-looking connotation, remains poorly defined. To address this gap, we draw on evidence from real-life cases in fourteen countries in an attempt to interpret how the two concepts are perceived in very different contexts. These case studies show that different understandings of modern and sustainable agriculture coexist and that agricultural development follows diverse pathways. We conclude that the growing demands for an agricultural and food system that is more resilient, equitable and inclusive can be met by providing more support for the many divergent trajectories of agricultural modernization that practitioners are actually pursuing: trajectories that are often more attuned to the imperatives of ecology and to changing socio–economic preferences than the classical modernization trajectory.