The development of integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS) is a major challenge for the ecological modernisation of agriculture but appears difficult to implement at a large scale. A participatory method for ICLS design has been developed and implemented in 15 case studies across Europe, representing a range of production systems, challenges, constraints and resources for innovation. Local stakeholders, primarily farmers, but also cooperatives, environmental-association representatives and natural-resource managers, were involved in the identification of challenges and existing initiatives of crop-livestock integration; in the design of new options at field, farm and territory levels; and then in qualitative multicriteria assessment of these options. A conceptual framework based on a conceptual model (crops, grasslands, animals) was developed to act as a boundary object in the design step and invite innovative thinking in 'metabolic' and 'ecosystemic' approaches. A diversity of crops and grasslands interacting with animals appeared central for designing sustainable farming systems at the territory level, providing and benefitting from ecosystem services. Within this diversity, we define three types of integrated systems according to their degrees of spatial and temporal coordination: complementarity, local synergy, territorial synergy. Moreover, the options for cooperation and collective organisation between farmers and other stakeholders in territories to organise and manage this diversity of land use revealed opportunities for smart social innovation. The qualitative multicriteria assessment identified farmer workload as the main issue of concern while demonstrating expected benefits of ICLS simultaneously for economic, agronomic, environmental and social criteria. This study concludes that participatory design of ICLS based on a generic multi-level and multi-domain framework and a methodology to deal with a local context can identify new systems to be tested. Further assessment and redesign work will be performed in later stages of the European FP7 CANTOGETHER project.

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An extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was applied by means of Structural Equation Modelling to testing various hypotheses on attitudes and intentions of dairy farmers towards three novel sustainable production strategies, as well as the influence of organic practices and collaborative behaviours, such as information sharing with supply-chain partners. Data on the acceptance of three sustainable production strategies, namely "Agro-forestry", "Alternative protein source", and "Prolonged maternal feeding" were collected by a survey of dairy farmers in six European Union (EU) countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, United Kingdom). We found that perceived usefulness is the key determinant of acceptance, while the intention to adopt a sustainable production strategy may derive from the influence of opinions (and behaviours) of relevant others (e.g., leading dairy farmers, family members, advisors) showing the role of interactions among farmers and other stakeholders in the adoption of innovations. Finally, the perceived usefulness of all of the investigated strategies is higher for organic farmers, while collaborative patterns reduce the impact of subjective norm on usefulness and overall acceptance. Our findings should encourage policy makers to consider the important role of supply chain management practices, including collaboration, to enhance the sustainability of dairy farming systems.

Two years of results from a 10 farmlet, farm systems trial (ending May 2001) are presented. The trial was designed to determine the efficiency and profitability of milksolids production when annual drymatter intake/cow and subsequent milksolids production/cow is increased within a whole farm system. Operating within the trial were five levels of feed intake and two farm management systems. The data presented show that with increasing kg liveweight/tonne of drymatter/ha, there was an increase in efficiency of pasture utilisation but a decrease in per cow efficiency. Extremes in increasing kg liveweight/tonne of drymatter were inclined to decrease the Economic Farm Surplus. Keywords: allowance, dairying, efficiency, milksolids, model