Agrar- und Ernährungswirtschaft zwischen Ressourceneffizienz und gesellschaftlichen Erwartungen

The 2017 Annual Conference of the German Society of Economic and Social Sciences in Agriculture (GEWISOLA) was held together with the Annual Conference of the Austrian Society of Economics (ÖGA) at the Technical University of Munich in Freising-Weihenstephan. Against the background of the conference theme “Bridging the Gap between Resource Efficiency and Society's Expectations in the Agricultural and Food Economy” the conference dealt with the current, entrepreneurial and technology-intensive agricultural and food sector taking into consideration global und societal developments. This article provides an overview of the conference program and summarizes the main findings of the research presented. At the beginning of the conference two pre-conference activities addressed the topics “Between Romantic Notions of Farm Life and Cost Pressure: Farm Employees at the Centre of Attention in the Economic and Social Sciences in Agriculture” and”Young Scientists in Agricultural Economics - Perspectives for Mixed-Method Approaches“. The plenary session following the pre-conference program was dedicated to the overall topic of the conference, “Bridging the Gap between Resource Efficiency and Society's Expectations in the Agricultural and Food Economy”. Four contributions from different disciplines were selected for the plenary session in order to demonstrate different viewpoints and to stimulate a lively discussion. In four parallel working groups, a total of 48 contributions examined the conference topic from various perspectives. Additionally, 31 researchers were given the opportunity to present posters and obtain feedback in short discussions. A panel discussion about the conference topic, involving selected representatives from politics, the food sector, trade, farmers, and consumers marked the closing session of the conference. The conference proceedings will be published as volume 53 of the journal “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.“. In summary, we can state that the joint GEWISOLA/ÖGA conference did again put forward an impressively broad variety of research topics and facilitated intensive discussions and knowledge exchange between scientists and practitioners. The spectrum of presentations ranged from more conceptually motivated papers aiming at methodological advancements in agricultural economics to more practically oriented issues regarding research in the areas of politics and society. Lively discussions among participants showed that the economic and social sciences in agriculture will continue to face challenges when it comes to providing solutions for the conflict between resource efficiency, food production and societal expectations.