This chapter assessed sustainability and resilience of eleven farming systems in their current situation, as well as in hypothetical future systems, using qualitative and quantitative methods. The assessment shows that current farming systems address sustainability dimensions in an unbalanced way and are characterized by poor resilience. Future resilient systems are imagined to promote environmental and social functions in the long term.

The arable farming in Northeast Bulgaria is important and has its traditions. For decades it has proved to be resilient, coping with diverse shocks and stresses. Nevertheless, challenges like climate change, labour scarcity and policy reforms still could undermine the functioning of the crop production system in the region. This chapter studies how different strategies from an economic, environmental and social domain would improve its future resilience.

This chapter aims to formulate principles and recommendations for an enabling environment that fosters resilience of farming systems. Principles have been derived from archetypical patterns identified in the various case studies on how actions in the enabling environment tend to constrain the resilience of farming systems.