Together with the evolution from the agro-industrial model to the sustainable rural development model (Roep and Wiskerke 2004), a part of the agro-food market has evolved from an anonymous, mass food market to a quality-food market. This shift is driven by factors, such as the changing relations...

This paper focuses upon the case of alternative food supply chains (AFSCs) as a "laboratory" for the implementation of sustainability concepts on a larger scale. To realize this type of upscaling, two important conditions should be fulfilled: the initiatives have to combine a performing internal...

Agriculture is faced by permanent evolution and it is expected that this trend will continue in the next decennium. The question is what challenges lie ahead and which types of agricultural research can support the sector in order to retain its competitive power by the year 2020. To address this...

Current thoughts on CAP changes, e.g. the "Health Check", emphasize the necessity to move away from payments based on historical receipts towards a "flatter rate" system. The aim of current research is to simulate the impact of a flat rate system (equal payments per hectare of cultivated land)...

To explain over- and underuse of available quota, Buysse et al. (2007) have integrated the shadow cost of the quota constraint in a quota flexibility function in a positive mathematical programming model. This method and central hypothesis, formulated and tested for the case of Belgian sugar...

In 2005, 30% of the Flemish farms faced a manure excess, while at aggregated level still 9.7% of the emission rights were unused. This means that, despite the various possibilities, Flemish farmers do not succeed in an effective exchange of manure between farms. In current paper is shown how...

One of the common strategies in rural development programmes is to support the adoption of new on-farm activities. The rationale behind this is that farm diversification is a way to assure an appropriate level of income for the farmers. Through interviews with 49 relatively small farmers, the...