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Abstract
The authors of this paper first define the main lines of the way the three systems that make up farming (cultivated ecosystem, production system, family) function and insist on the fundamental role of the family and of the expected duration of the family-farm relationship, and then show what aspects may have been modified by modern development in techniques. They analyse the difficulty in adopting any form of technical innovation (technical proposals are by sector, may make the , system more fragile, are not always compatible with choices made in the past and with the farmer's past life) and show that farms may develop in three main ways and that not all of them have high technical and economic results. They also underline the fact that technical improvements, that result from socio-economic changes, show up new blockages and in conclusion refer to the future outlook for the stabilization of production systems around models that improve the farmers' life style rather than technical performances.