Towards Sustainable Rural Regions in Europe

This book presents the methodology and results of a three-year, eleven-country science-to-policy research project, Toward a Policy Model of Multifunctional Agriculture and Rural Development, undertaken between 2005 and 2008 and financed under the European Union's Sixth Framework program. It deals with an important contemporary policy issue, how best to ensure that an agriculturally-based policy can contribute to the development of rural regions. It tackles this problem in a number of different but complementary ways, primarily by the development of a unique and innovative dynamic systems model, POMMARD (a Policy Model of Multifunctional Agriculture and Rural Development).