European Group of the
IFSA International Farming Systems Association

6th European Symposium on
Farming and Rural Systems Research and Extension
Vila Real, Portugal, 3-8 April, 2004

European Farming and Society in search of a new social contract
Learning to manage change

Pre-symposium site .. Aknowledgements (word doc) .. Photo gallery

start over

Open Questions

1. Is there any information we missed, if yes, please comment?

General information about IFSA history and spirit and overview over the networks of IFSA.

A more detailed program to download previously.

2. What aspects of the parallel session did you find most interesting?

What each workshop said about policy.

The parallel session did not peak my interest.

The least interesting aspect: should have followed final summary of workshops.

Discussion of WTO and policies at a European level.

Not very interesting, lack of structure, clear objectives.

Presentations from MEP/policy makers

I actually found it quite boring.

Did not find it interesting. Very broad conclusions with no practical functions. Nice overview by Dr. Arlindo Cunha.

The theme and the quest speakers.

Political responsibility and strategy of IFSA European and global networking on policy extension exchange of experiences about networking, social learning.

The question, how research can and should engage in a broader political aspects.

The quality of the presentations and the responses.

Point of view about agricultural policy.

3. What aspects of the workshop did you find most interesting?

Meeting people doing similar things.

Convergence of ideas.

Time for discussing.

Smal group discussions.

Discussion and dialogue arising from the papers.

Case study presentations althought lack of conclusions.

Corridor conversations. The opening ceremony (the devils) (sufficient but not too long formalities) (excellent opening speeches)

Exchange around the papers and point of view of the different approaches.

Colin´s Newshan presentation, including discussion.

Lack of the theme extension.

The discussion and synthesis at the last day.

Discussions. Small group discussions

Different social approaches that are the newest regarding environmental functions of agriculture.

As it was the first time I attended an IFSA symposium, it allowed me to discover what were the different networks of researchers involved in this association.

Presentations.

The comparative aspects between the dfferent countries.

Integrating international perspectives to have meaning at our regional level.

Workshop 4 was terribly run/structured, so I found nothing interesting in workshop 4. I escaped WS4 to visit WS2 and WS3 and they were interesting because of: a) use of economic theory inextension and b) organic farming projects.

The sharing of experiences and helping of new participants to be integrated.

Some presentations, last days discussion, fieldtrip, informal talks.

The question fo integrating different aspects of landscape in assessment and analysis of rural landscapes.

4. Please give us additional coments about the field trip?

Comments about Visit 3: Great lunch and variety of visits – a very long day though – shorter.
Comments about Visit 3: Well organized, stimulated although hard to get the technical details due to it being a) hard to translate b) large group. Lovely part of Portugal to visit, Not too taxing, not too far to drive. Lovely food.
Comments about Visit 3: I enjoyed the variety and opportunity to socialize with other participants. Regreted no opportunity to bring experiences back to the discussion.
Comments about Visit 1: Translators and guides should to a larger extent let local people talk. Not enough real information exchange.
Comments about Visit 1: Good contacts, interesting field trip.
Comments about Visit 3: A very good trip to view a part of the portuguese agriculture.
Comments about Visit 1: I just regret that the Ministry of Ag. Technician we met in the afternoon was not able to speak about other areas but forestry.
Comments about Visit 1: A great number of points of view about the region.
Comments about Visit 2: Great variety to know farmer´s options, objectives and experiences. Very good opportunity to know more about the character of the region and the citizen´s of Douro e.g. Farmers.
Comments about 3: Very well organized. Easy pace, very diverse and interestigng. Beautiful experiences villages, landscape, olive trees.
Comments about 3: Very well thought through – information intensive in the morning; leisurely walk through the landscape in the post-lunch period, not too long in the bus; plenty of scope for conversations with a range of people - AND a lovely landscape and super food!!
Comments about 3: Lack of understanding of the systems itself. Full time persons. Day to day. Subsidiary schemes, support practices. Framing picture to understand the system.
Comments about 2: The interpreter should know the subject. The translation with several people talking at the same time with long internal discussions, were very confusing.
Comments about 2:Well done. Could have had more translators so that the large group could split up. Students could do this.

5. Has the symposium lived up to your expectations, if yes please explain?

Three points in (5) more or less fulfilled.

The contacts.

Well staged, brilliant weather, great hospitality.

In terms of exchange, topic identification, network building.

Interesting.

Interesting people/presentations.

I made the contacts I wanted t make and the contact was interesting.

Focussed; very good quality research reports; many young participants; exellent documentation.

An excellent chance to keep up wit developments and with colleagues. Excellent documentation.

Enough room for discussions, methodology, very interesting paper inputs. I liked the methodology of WS4 with referees of papers, but some more time to get statements and examples of the authors would have been good!

Interesting exchange around our researach theme. Discovery of new approaches from other countries.

Good Network/Great Field trip.

We seemed to have moved from previous conferences.

Partly, there were interesting and good presentations – but there should have been more time for discussions.

6. Has the symposium lived up to your expectations, if no please explain?

Difficult to understand/take in powerpoint with lots of text and listening at same time when not in first language.

We still need to do more to reach out to the EU accession countries.

WS4 is IFSA´s key discussion area (learning) and WS4 was a total disaster. Very frustrating for me as an author and as audience. We must hear the authors tell their story in order to hold a valuable discussion – not rapportuers or facilitators! WS4 was a 100% total and complete waste of everyone´s time. Just terrible.

I was hoping to pick up some techniques. Would have liked some closure on some of the issues, otherwise they will rise again. Because of the workshops didn´t meet the other half of the conference.

Content of the plenary session.

I expected a platform for practitioners, researchers and policy-makers in order to exhange new challenges for social change and it was too much theory/abstract stuff.

Impression of no new ideas, Repeating always the same –

Because there were too many papers in the workshop and we couldn´t really discuss the papers. I´d had preferred tha WS be organized like the others, even if my paper would have been rejected.

Not being able to present my work, but I think others were also missed.

7. Do you have any suggestions on topics for workshops for the next symposium? Please indicate.

Do not allow co-ordinators to dictate the structure of sessions without wider consultation.

Maybe the way to do it is to have a greater number of rooms speaking to lower audience numbers and allow greater discussion of the papers with the authors – this would mean being more selective aobut who goes to present. It would also mean being ruthless about authors speaking to the theme statement (that seemed to be an issue in WS4) and I mean ruthless – ask them to explore a theme using these experiences not the other way around. This may help get some constructive debate on the contentious topic. It seem to me that the traditional journal formula paper isn´t helpful in this process.

Higher education experiences brought into the discussion.

Transdisciplinary network building and facilitating.

A joint workshop of all themes on research/policy relationships.

Time to restructure the whole symposium? Need a more dynamic intechange between all participants through a process that alternates between plenary and small working groups.

Water focus.

Alternative systems to help the transposition of the liminal zone. And also to explore different products related to agriculture (eg aromatic plants, etc.)

Abandonment and marginalization, both of agriculture and rural areas.

Public goods and privatized extension.

Resouce dilemmas and policy options.

Move from agriculture to ecological sources

Common resources (e.g. ground water) and institutions

WS based on the inter-disciplinary ---technical economical approach.

Select a reasonable number of papers/WS.

Policy Dialogue on sustainable area-based develoment in rural areas:

Pluridisciplinarity.

From the Local to the Global: Interactions between the local and global at not equal scale. The diversity in agriculture, environment , production and social conditions.

Sustainable agriculture.

Farming systems and variability of their context using the diversity fo resources to manage with the variability of the context, variability in climate in socio economic environment.

8. What practical or other aspects would you suggest the organizaing committee change in order to improve the next symposium?

Name tags essential – elitist think all people know each other or know how to pronounce remember names.

Room withou echo and access to quiet “breakout” areas.

I have none. It was really good. No gripes. Will be a wonderful memory.

Have good venues and breakout rooms for large thematic groups.

Enable more interchange between all participants sub-groups through the workshop. Make the meeting a real working symposium.

Do not continue with 2 different working procedures (WS4 and the others):mix learning and interactions and collaboration with topical workshops.

Position of the posters. Put them up from day 1 in a place that is visible and accessible.

Proceedings in recycled paper.

Need a very good facilitator for workshop 4 taking care of the entire process for expectations/needs assessment, presentations and group discussions, elaboration of findings and evaluations.

Somehow make possible more inteaction – connection between workshops.

Do not work on Sundays.

The idea of picking people up at the airport is really good. It was very different in 2002 at Florence.

Keep tours, field trips on the second day.

Be aware of chairperson needs and communicate wishes for furniture, facilitation equipment.

Create opportunities for a little more plenary interactions in the middle of the series of workshop sessions – to allow a little more interaction.

Parallel session questions t be discussed in advance.

The second parallel sessions should have come after workshops were finalized, so that all conclusions from workshops were ready and could feed into the broader discussions.

A little more in-depth description of workshop themes could be heeded. Not full papers, but abstracts submitted first.

It is easy with name tags. The list of participants was hardly useful due to a lot of misspellings of names and e-mail addresses.

9. Do you have any additional comments or suggestions? Please comment.

Workshop 4: All authors should have a chance to present – even if 5 minutes

Never use the WS4 structure ever again. If I knew before what WS4 was going to be like, I would not have attended IFSA 2004.

The organization was a credit to you and your translators worked well under trying circumstances- they were helpful and always cheerful and I thank them for their care. The transport was good and the city was walkable so we could stretch our legs. Finally the weather – I know you can´t claim it – but it was fabulous.

A lot of overlap between the workshops – little structure in WS2 lead to a lack of discussion and concrete conclusions.

Purpose of worshop needs to be a bit clearer: discussion, recommendations.

I don´t think 2 hours for lunch is necessary. One hour of lunch would be enough and give more time for discussions in the workshops. The poster presentation should have more space and should not be at the end of the day, as people are leaving.

Workshop style should be more participatory and action learning oriented.

With a place with such a history, some sight seeing guides or suggestions should have been available,especially when a travel agency is involved. I think people will learn without having a broader view of culture, gastronomy, history, traditions besides the agricultural particularities.

I thought the organization of ws4 was good in the sense that discussions were much stimulated when the group was divided (voluntarily) into smaller groups around a question proposed of the authors of the articles presented in the session in question. Very stimulating discussions!

Would be nice to arrange to get together in hotel on the 1st evening eg 8pm onwards (IFSA sign at bar). Vegetarian food perhaps special table to be booked.
I absolutely loved the crazy introduction – with the music, masks, demons. It was very magical and quite moving somehow.

Missing general issues! No time for posters WS4 in a general way, it should be included in every approach. Very good reports on final sessions. Good job of facilitators and rapporteers.

Pre-symposium site .. Aknowledgements (word doc) .. Photo gallery

last updated: 27.09.2004
Pedro Ferrão
pferrao@utad.pt