ORGANIZING SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES American Society of Agronomy | European Society for Agronomy American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers International Environmental Modeling and Software Society | Australian Society of Agronomy

Welcome to the Second Biennial International Symposium on Farming Systems Design. Your interest in this area will make this symposium a success and a major international effort among a number of scientifi c societies. On behalf of the cooperating scientifi c societies and the program committee, we thank you for your participation and your interactions with international colleagues on this important topic. The increasing interest in alternative farming systems and an effort to expand the capability and capacity of farming systems to provide food, feed, fuel, fi ber, or fl owers continues to raise questions about how this can be done in a sustainable manner. This symposium was designed to address a number of themes which were identifi ed by the Program Committee. The themes for this symposium cover a number of areas that cover broad-scale questions. These themes follow throughout the program and the papers are grouped according to these themes. Theme 1. Regional-scale farm design and improvement Subtheme 1.1 Lifecycle of Value Chains Subtheme 1.2 Climate impacts on agricultural systems Theme 2. Field-scale farm design and improvement Theme 3. Alternative management systems Subtheme 3.1 Systems for energy and water-use effi cient farmin