There is a high potential for simultaneously increasing sustainability of the earth system and economic development by removing inefficiencies currently present both at the production input and output side. In this paper a static view on sustainability is employed, by introducing capacity...

Due to pressures such as climate change, globalization, price volatility and scarcity of natural resources, our agri-food chain is urged to make a transition towards more sustainable production. How to organize such a transition, given the various stakeholders involved, and how to monitor...

The ecosystem and the economic subsystem are interlinked. In fact, it is the overconsumption of scarce resources or the overproduction of bad outputs at economic system level that causes a great part of the imbalances at the ecosystem level. Some imbalances do not originate at the economic...

In 2015 the quota in the dairy sector will no longer be prolonged, as one of the measures to further liberalize the dairy market. To support farmers in this more volatile market and to increase their negotiation power, the EU has proposed several measures in a Dairy Package, amongst which the...

In their continuous quest for ecologic improvements, private voluntary certification initiatives might undermine the willingness to continue of the participating farmers. In this research, the ecologic contribution and the farmers’ acceptance of changing the pesticide policy of a private...

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...