ABSTRACT. In Uruguay, livestock production involves 65% of the family farmers and more than 70% of the total area of the country. Several technologies have been generated by researchers to increase economic and productive results in beef-cattle production systems. However, these technologies are poorly adopted and have a relative low impact on the sustainability of the farming systems. Among other reasons, this could be due to the difficulty in combining all the information in a particular productive system. In Uruguay, the sustainability of horticulture-livestock family farming systems was improved using the co-innovation approach, and till now, no efforts were made with livestock family systems. In the present work, we hypothesized that is necessary to use a systemic and participative approach for re-designing productive systems in order to improve their sustainability. So the objective was to adapt the co-innovation approach for livestock family farming systems in the Eastern region of Uruguay through its application in pilot farms. The work was carried out with 7 pilot farms, using the co-innovation approach and following three steps: 1- characterization and diagnosis, 2- re-design and 3- implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The social dimension of the changes and the comprehension of the type of learning process, related to the changes that the families involved deal with, were systematized with in-depth interviews, participant observations and other complementary techniques. The interchange process between technical and local knowledge is a distinctive and relevant characteristic of the project. The planning of the decision process associated with farming activities is one of the learning that farmers highlight and clearly associate with the project. However, in other areas planning is not so noticeable. For example, one of the most critical limitations is the difficulty to project a model of family farming inside the family. In most of the families, is not possible to visualize new generations to maintain and sustain the model in the future. The co-innovation approach has demonstrated to be appropriate and of high relevance to facilitate significant changes in the farming systems that are directly involved with the project. A tailored and precise diagnosis along with the re-design of the farming system with a systemic approach, constructed together between farmers and technicians, were key factors for the successful implementation of the changes.