In Uruguay, during the last decades the number of farms has decreased significantly being the family farms the most affected ones. Between 2000 and 2011, 21% of the farms disappeared. However, Uruguay has 26.480 livestock farms in 11.7 million of hectares, most of them family farming systems based on natural grasslands. We proposed that at the farm level there are opportunities to improve the productive and economic results through an adequate selection and orientation of the productive activities and applying the adequate technologies, but in a modality in which researchers and farmers are closely involved in that co-design process. A co-innovation approach implemented in the horticulture systems in Uruguay successfully contributed to improve their sustainability. P