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The agricultural policies shift gradually from EU-level organised market interventions to local organised environmental policies. This paper explores the growth possibilities of the Flemish dairy sector with the outlook of a quota abolishment as a case study of this policy shift. The dairy quota policy seems very restrictive for the highly profitable Flemish dairy sector, but the environmental restrictions from the manure regulation can limit the growth of the dairy sector as well. The paper uses a spatial multi-agent simulation model applied to a sample of 40.000 farms to estimate price development of emission rights and their possible impact on the growth of the dairy production. The results show that a higher milk production leads to higher prices for emission rights. However, the increased cost of manure emission rights is not expected to impede dairy farm growth because the current milk quota rent estimates go far beyond the cost of manure emission rights.

In 2005, 30% of the Flemish farms faced a manure excess, while at aggregated level still 9.7% of the emission rights were unused. This means that, despite the various possibilities, Flemish farmers do not succeed in an effective exchange of manure between farms. In current paper is shown how inorganic fertilizer use influences the use and exchange of organic nitrogen. Because of the mutual interdependency between organic and inorganic nitrogen emission rights (or quota), inorganic nitrogen use limits the emission rights for organic nitrogen. Utilisation of these emission rights are analysed as a trade-offs choice between plant productivity (use of inorganic nitrogen) and manure disposal, as the major abatement alternative of manure production. Farmers still prefer inorganic fertilizers because of their effect on plant productivity and income. However, by changing the quota rent of organic nitrogen, the fertilization behaviour can be influenced. A higher quota rent of organic nitrogen would increase the use of manure. This trade-off behaviour seriously influences effectiveness of policies. When the objective is to lower the total nitrogen use, a mere reduction of organic quota can partially be counteracted by a higher inorganic nitrogen use. When the objective is to better spread the manure, increasing the quota rent for deficit farms will increase their acceptance of manure.

Agri-food systems are confronted with sustainability challenges such as climate change, price volatility and retaining consumer trust. Agri-food systems are complex, dynamic systems involving multiple actors such as science, policy, industry and civil society. To tackle these challenges, a transformation of the agri-food system towards sustainability is essential. Therefore, collective effort and actions are required. The rationale of this dissertation stems from the observation that although multiple agri-food networks arise, most of these networks fall short in realising their objective or cease before any changes are made. The aim of this dissertation thus is to explore the potential of new agrifood networks in food system transformations. We applied systems thinking, combining systems approaches and transdisciplinary research. Systems thinking in practice can help to address four societal challenges, namely sustainability as a multidimensional and normative concept, complex processes in a dynamic agri-food system, new types of organisation in agri-food networks, and the presence of multiple heterogeneous actors with diverse visions. Throughout the dissertation, eight agri-food networks were analysed and compared with an emphasis on multi-actor collaboration, their governance, their culture and reflexive evaluation.

The agri-food system is a dynamic and complex system where companies work closely together. Societal pressures challenge this system to transform its activities towards more sustainability. Transformation implies a continuous process of measuring progress, learning and seeking new ways to achieve and organize the sustainable development of the system. Given the complexity of the agri-food system and its challenges, a wide diversity of sustainability assessments arises. The rationale of the PhD research is to guide agri-food chain actors in the sustainable development of their firm, farm, food chain, organization or system. The research aims to enable the chain actors to improve and follow up their sustainability by structuring the myriad of sustainability assessments. Although practice based, the research objective and questions answer specific challenges defined in literature. The overall objective is to unravel contextual and procedural aspects necessary to organize and install sustainability assessments focusing on assessment approaches and tool use in practice. To do so, needs of agri-food system actors regarding sustainability assessment were identified. This allowed to define building blocks for sustainable development and construct five types of sustainable development processes in the agri-food system. At farm level, this resulted in a framework for guiding sustainability assessment and on-farm strategic decision making together with an on-demand assessment tool. Next, with this framework, it became possible to structure existing sustainability assessment tools. The dissertation concludes with three take-home messages for agri-food system actors who want to set-up new sustainable development processes: (1) sustainable development processes should be action-oriented and generate actionable knowledge by valuing interaction and knowledge co-creation; (2) strengthen the link between sustainability assessment and strategic decision-making by offering individual trajectories and a complementary use of tools; (3) take into account the influence of a governance structure by incorporating regular reflection moments.