The publication provides an overview of the research carried out by the SARe Master students in their home countries as part of their second-year activities. They conducted field research on problems related to specific agroecosystems and of concern to small-scale farmers, pastoralists, local institutions and organisations. The focus was on food products, value chains, natural resource management, innovation systems and agricultural services.

The briefing provides an overview of the organic food and farming movement’s understanding of sustainability in crop breeding. As IFOAM Organics Europe, the European organic umbrella organisation and voice of organic with the EU institutions, we wrote this document to assess and counter the European Commission’s narrow and problematic approach to sustainability traits in plant breeding.

Although hemp cultivation is increasingly perceived as a promising option in terms of crop diversification, especially in semi-arid conditions such as in the Mediterranean region, its adoption remains limited thus constraining the development of hemp value chains at a larger scale. Our objective was to explore suitable conditions, at farm and downstream levels, for organic hempseed oil production in Sicily, taking on an action-research perspective that involves local actors.

After the success of the 1st edition of Montpellier in 2016, CIHEAM organized the 2nd edition of the Mediterranean initiative for PhD students and young researchers (MedForum2018) at CIHEAM Bari (Italy) from 18 to 20 September 2018.