ABSTRACT
The need to make agricultural systems more sustainable is recognised as an urgent issue by most decision-makers (Gafsi et al., 2006). At the European Commission level, the threats that can arise from agricultural practice are taken seriously, whether regarding environmental issues (European Commission, EC, 2003) or employment loss due to further modernisation of EU’s agriculture (EC, 2006). Accordingly, the EU has been trying to address those challenges by reshaping its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in various ways. Typically, one of the responses offered by the EU to the lack of sustainability of agricultural systems in Europe is the concept of a “multifunctional agriculture” which, as will be discussed later, leaves room for different interpretations in terms of sustainability of agricultural systems (Renting et al., 2009).
