The possibility for the agricultural systems to develop in a sustainable way is connected to changes in other ecosystems and decisions made by other institutions than agricultural. Those systems operate on different scales in time and space. The course will focus on the interactions between those scales levels, with agriculture in the centre.
The course will introduce PhD students to how, and analyse in what way, agriculture is dependent on ecosystem services from processes in surrounding biological and geological system, at different scales. But also how these ecosystem services are influenced by human decision systems, such as trade rules and decisions made by EU and other international as well as national institutions, across scales.

The course will use a concrete organic farming situation in an area in western Sweden as a case, and interpret ecosystem services from different scales (soil, field, farm, landscape, municipal, region) on the production system.

The course will also problemize goal conflicts at different scales, and scaling up research results made at one scale to larger scales.