The multifunctionality of agriculture promoted by the Agriculture Act is difficult to reconcile with the intensive models dominant in Guadeloupe and Reunion. This is made clear by an analysis of the management rules and practices for territorial farming contracts, intended to implement this Act. The difficulty of this reconciliation can also be observed by the impact that the statute’s application has had on its targets — production units. We conducted open or conversation interviews with institutional personnel and with farmers who have signed these contracts.

The challenge of pursuing sustainability in agriculture is often viewed as mainly or wholly technical in nature, requiring the reform of farming methods and the development and adoption of alternative technologies. Likewise, the purpose of sustainability is frequently cast in utilitarian terms, as a means of protecting a valuable resource (i.e., soil) and of satisfying market demands for healthy, tasty food. Paul B. Thompson has argued that the embrace of these views by many in the consumer/environmental movement enables easy co-optation by agribusiness.

The management of soils is an important issue for policy makers in Ethiopia. However, most of the interventions designed to conserve the soil resources have fallen short of the expectations, performing impressively in the short run, but proving unsustainable on a long-term basis. There are no simple explanations for the failure of these interventions to reverse soil degradation, but it has been evident for some time that there is an uneasy connection between 'objective' assessments of the state of the land and the way this information is used in the policy-making processes.

A ‘broad brush’ picture of farming in the pastoral zone of NSW is presented in this report. The pastoral zone of NSW is characterised by wide variations in climatic conditions, soil type and vegetation species. Hence representative faming system analysis was conducted for three sub-regions - the Upper Darling, the Murray-Darling and Far West. The regions were defined and described in terms of their resources, climate and the nature of agriculture.