Farms and sustainable agriculture

This paper offers a theoretical analysis for a renewed approach to farming suitable to the requirements of sustainability and multifunctionality and provides an empirical example. We propose first a broader approach to strategic resources that can be mobilized by farms. These include not only the classic forms of capital - physical, human, and financial but also natural and social capital. This theoretical framework relies on a resource-based approach. Second, starting from stakeholder theory, the farm is represented as an organization inserted in stakeholder networks and a web of multiple influences acting on the farmers' strategic decisions. Stakeholder theory offers a new light on the farm's borders and on its relations with other non-agricultural participants and actors.