The MEDRATE project has generated a comprehensive dataset on production systems and technology testing from pilot areas in the Mediterranean region. This paper makes a synthesis of environments and production systems in the pilot areas, and demonstrates that they are representative for a wide range of agricultural environments in the Mediterranean region. The paper also confirms the strong linkages between production systems and environments, highlights the perception of drought and rainfall variability as a key environmental risk across all pilot areas, the importance of rural-urban interactions in guiding agricultural development pathways, and the need for a better awareness of the space-dependence, in terms of climatic, soil and terrain conditions, of some of the technologies studied.