This special issue is the product of the First International Symposium on Farming Systems Design organized in September 2007 in Catania, Italy by the European and American Societies for Agronomy (ESA and ASA), the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society and the International Farming Systems Association. In addition to sharing knowledge on methods and results, the symposium objective was to launch an international and interdisciplinary network on farming systems design. This idea has been reemphasized recently at the second Symposium held in Monterey (USA) in August 2009 where the initial group was joined by the Australian Society for Agronomy, who will organize the third symposium in 2011 in Brisbane