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International audience; After the success of the 1st edition of Montpellier in 2016, CIHEAM organized the 2nd edition of the Mediterranean initiative for PhD students and young researchers (MedForum2018) at CIHEAM Bari (Italy) from 18 to 20 September 2018. MedForum2018, entitled “Research and Innovation: Tools for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security”, focused on the CIHEAM Strategic Agenda 2025 (CAPMED2025) and its Action Plan developed for the implementation of the United-Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in specific fields across the Mediterranean area. Through research work of PhD students and young researchers, MedForum2018 aimed at: - Fostering entrepreneurship, women and youth employment; - Identifying and sharing potential innovation tools geared towards integrated solutions for sustainable agriculture, food and nutrition security; - Enhancing research and innovation impact at national and regional level; - Proposing alternatives to prevent young researchers’ migrations. MedForum2018 was organized by CIHEAM in partnership with MAECI-Italy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation), CMI (Center for Mediterranean Integration of the World Bank), UfM (Union for the Mediterranean), Agreenium (Institut Agronomique, Vétérinaire et Forestier de France) and with the technical collaboration of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

International audience; Chitosan is a biopolymer obtained from chitin, one of the most abundant and renewable materials on Earth. Chitin is a primary component of cell walls in fungi, the exoskeletons of arthropods such as crustaceans, e.g., crabs, lobsters and shrimps, and insects, the radulae of molluscs, cephalopod beaks, and the scales of fish and lissamphibians. The discovery of chitin in 1811 is attributed to Henri Braconnot while the history of chitosan dates back to 1859 with the work of Charles Rouget. The name of chitosan was, however, introduced in 1894 by Felix Hoppe-Seyler. Chitosan has attracted major scientific and industrial interests from the late 1970s due to its particular macromolecular structure, biocompatibility, biodegradability and other intrinsic functional properties. Chitosan and derivatives have practical applications in the food industry, agriculture, pharmacy, medicine, cosmetology, textile and paper industries, and in chemistry. In recent years, chitosan has also received much attention in dentistry, ophthalmology, biomedicine and bioimaging, hygiene and personal care, veterinary medicine, packaging industry, agrochemistry, aquaculture, functional textiles and cosmetotextiles, catalysis, chromatography, beverage industry, photography, wastewater treatment and sludge dewatering, and biotechnology. Nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals are actually growing markets, and therapeutic and biomedical products should be the next markets in the development of chitosan. Chitosan is also the object of numerous fundamental studies. In this review, we highlight a selection of works on chitosan applications published over the past two decades.

International audience; Mosquito control is implemented when arboviruses are detected in patients or in field-collected mosquitoes. However, mass screening of mosquitoes is usually laborious and expensive, requiring specialized expertise and equipment. Detection of virus in mosquito saliva using honey-impregnated filter papers seems to be a promising method as it is non-destructive and allows monitoring the viral excretion dynamics over time from the same mosquito. Here we test the use of filter papers to detect chikungunya virus in mosquito saliva in laboratory conditions, before proposing this method in large-scale mosquito surveillance programs. We found that 0.9 cm 2 cards impregnated with a 50% honey solution could replace the forced salivation technique as they offered a viral RNA detection until 7 days after oral infection of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes with CHIKV.

International audience; Further characterization to properly assess the fate of organic matter quality during anaerobic digestion and organic carbon mineralization in soils is required. Organic matter quality based on its accessibility and complexity was employed to successfully classify 28 substrate/digestate pairs through principal components and hierarchical clustering analysis. The two first components explained 58.02% of the variability and four main groups were separated according to the feedstock type. A decrease in the accessibility (16–66%) and an increase in the complexity (34–98%) of the most accessible fractions was noticed. Besides, an increase of non-biodegradable compounds (17–66%) was globally observed after anaerobic digestion. The observed trends in the conversion of organic matter during anaerobic digestion have allowed to fill the gap in the modeling of the anaerobic digestion process chain. Indeed, partial least squares regressions have accurately predicted the organic matter quality of digestates from their inputs (R2 = 0.831, Q2 = 0.593) although the digester operational conditions (temperature and hydraulic retention time) were non-explicative enough. As a novel approach, the predicted digestate quality was used to feed a partial least squares regression model previously developed to predict organic carbon mineralization in soil. The combined models have predicted experimental organic carbon mineralization in soil (R2 = 0.697) with a model quality similar to the model for organic carbon mineralization in soil (R2 = 0.894). This is the first study that has successfully conceived an additional step in the prediction of organic matter fate from raw substrate before anaerobic digestion to soil carbon mineralization.

Forum Paper Insect chemical ecology (ICE) evolved as a discipline concerned with plant–insect interactions, and also with a strong focus on intraspecific pheromone-mediated communication. Progress in this field has rendered a more complete picture of how insects exploit chemical information in their surroundings in order to survive and navigate their world successfully. Simultaneously, this progress has prompted new research questions about the evolution of insect chemosensation and related ecological adaptations, molecular mechanisms that mediate commonly observed behaviors, and the consequences of chemically mediated interactions in different ecosystems. Themed meetings, workshops, and summer schools are ideal platforms for discussing scientific advancements as well as identifying gaps and challenges within the discipline. From the 11th to the 22nd of June 2018, the 11th annual PhD course in ICE was held at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) Alnarp, Sweden. The course was made up of 35 student participants from 22 nationalities (Fig. 1a) as well as 32 lecturers. Lectures and laboratory demonstrations were supported by literature seminars, and four broad research areas were covered: (1) multitrophic interactions and plant defenses, (2) chemical communication focusing on odor sensing, processing, and behavior, (3) disease vectors, and (4) applied aspects of basic ICE research in agriculture. This particular article contains a summary and brief synthesis of these main emergent themes and discussions from the ICE 2018 course. In addition, we also provide suggestions on teaching the next generation of ICE scientists, especially during unprecedented global situations info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

International audience; The oak barrel maturation step is nowadays strongly rooted in the production of quality wines. Two main physico-chemical phenomena contribute to the modification and improvement of wine: the solubilisation of volatile and non-volatile wood compounds concomitant with the dissolution of oxygen from the air into the wine. Indeed, wood is a porous material and gas transfer (especially oxygen transfer, expressed as oxygen transfer rate or OTR) through oak barrels, is an intrinsic parameter which ensures wine oxygen supply during maturation. Due to its oenological impact, it has been actively studied over recent decades using several approaches based on the same principle: the monitoring of oxygen in a model wine solution in the barrel. This project aimed at assaying barrel OTR by using a new tool based on the theoretical knowledge of gas transfer through porous materials. An oxygen concentration gradient was created on each side of a barrel kept in an airtight stainless-steel tank. The concentration of the oxygen in the atmosphere around the barrel was monitored in order to quantify oxygen transfer, thus the avoiding common drawbacks of interactions between dissolved oxygen ingress kinetics and the consumption of oxygen in the liquid phase by wood components. This study reports for the first time, the diffusion coefficient of entire oak barrels (Q. sessilis) to be between 10(-10) and 10(-9)m(2)/s, and it contributes to increasing knowledge on the complex phenomena driving oxygen ingress during the maturation of wine in barrels kept in cellar conditions. The results highlight the important role of wood moisture content in oxygen transfer, and provides a simple and reliable parameter to monitor it: the weight of the barrel. Following methodology developed by the authors, the OTR of a new oak barrel was found to be 11.4 mg/L per year. Taking into account the oxygen released through the wood pores, a new barrel will contribute 14.4 mg/L per year of oxygen to the wine, of which 46 % in the first three months of aging.

International audience; Worldwide dairy processing plants produce high volumes of dairy processing sludge (DPS), which can be converted into secondary derivatives such as struvite, biochar and ash (collectively termed STRUBIAS). All of these products have high fertilizer equivalent values (FEV), but future certification as phosphorus (P)-fertilizers in the European Union will mean they need to adhere to new technical regulations for fertilizing materials i.e., content limits pertaining to heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn), synthetic organic compounds and pathogens. This systematic review presents the current state of knowledge about these bio-based fertilizers and identifies knowledge gaps. In addition, a review and calculation of greenhouse gas emissions from a range of concept dairy sludge management and production systems for STRUBIAS products [i.e., biochar from pyrolysis and hydrochar from hydrothermal carbonization (HTC)] is presented. Results from the initial review showed that DPS composition depends on product type and treatment processes at a given processing plant, which leads to varied nutrient, heavy metal and carbon contents. These products are all typically high in nutrients and carbon, but low in heavy metals. Further work needs to concentrate on examining their pathogenic microorganism and emerging contaminant contents, in addition to conducting an economic assessment of production and end-user costs related to chemical fertilizer equivalents. With respect to STRUBIAS products, contaminants not present in the raw DPS may need further treatment before being land applied in agriculture e.g., heated producing ashes, hydrochar, or biochar. An examination of these products from an environmental perspective shows that their water quality footprint could be minimized using application rates based on P incorporation of these products into nutrient management planning and application by incorporation into the soil. Results from the concept system showed that elimination of methane emissions was possible, along with a reduction in nitrous oxide. Less carbon (C) is transferred to agricultural fields where DPS is processed into biochar and hydrochar, but due to high recalcitrance, the C in this form is retained much longer in the soil, and therefore STRUBIAS products represent a more stable and long-term option to increase soil C stocks and sequestration.

Peat substrates are well known to become hydrophobic during desiccation, thus degrading their water retention properties. Synthetic wetting agents are commonly incorporated to limit the risk of hydrophobicity, but substrates companies are searching for more sustainable alternatives. To that end, the effect of wood fiber addition in peat-based mixes was measured using contact angles and hydration curves. The study was carried out on two raw materials (white milled peat and wood fiber) and binary mixes. The results showed a shift from hydrophilic to more hydrophobic character with a decrease in the ability to rewet of peat-based substrates in relation to the intensity of drying, whereas wood fiber remained hydrophilic. Increasing wood fiber content in peat-based mixes improved the rehydration efficiency, but with a lower intensity of that measured with synthetic wetting agent addition. Our results highlighted the hydrophilic nature of wood fiber and demonstrated an additional benefit of wood fiber use in peat-based growing media.

International audience; The olive oil industry is an important economic sector in Mediterranean countries. However, oil production is unfortunately accompanied by the generation of huge amounts of olive mill solid wastes (OMSW) and olive mill wastewater (OMWW). In the present study, a strategy is proposed for converting these olive mill wastes into biochar through pyrolysis, for their later use as an organic amendment in agriculture. Specifically, two biochars were prepared from the pyrolysis of OMSW at 500°C, either alone or impregnated with OMWW (OMSW-B and I-OMSW-B). The characterization of the OMSW and I-OMSW samples and their derived biochars showed that the fixed carbon and ash contents in the feedstocks increased by 38% and 11% respectively for OMSW-B, and by 37% and 12% respectively for I-OMSW-B. Interestingly, the impregnation process significantly increased Na, P, K, Ca and Fe contents in the produced biochars. The effect of OMSW-B and I-OMSW-B amendments at different application dose (1%, 2.5% and 5% wt/wt) on the enzymatic activity of an agricultural soil was performed at laboratory scale with a pot test. The experimental results showed that phosphatase and urease activity increased with biochar application rate; amendment with I-OMSW-B at 1%, 2.5% and 5% enhanced the phosphatase activity by 63%, 142% and 285% and urease activity by 50%, 116% and 149%, respectively. On the other hand, dehydrogenase and protease activities were higher for the application rate of 2.5% biochar. Biochar amendment promoted tomatoes seedling growth after 10 weeks, which was highest in the application rates of 2.5% and 5% for both OMSW-B and I-OSMW-B. Thus, the produced biochars had great potential to be used as biofertilizers in agriculture.

A diversity of arthropods (myrmecophiles) thrives within ant nests, many of them unmolested though some, such as the specialized Eucharitidae parasitoids, may cause direct damage to their hosts. Ants are known to discriminate between nestmates and non-nestmates, but whether they recognize the strength of a threat and their capacity to adjust their behavior accordingly have not been fully explored. We aimed to determine whether Ectatomma tuberculatum ants exhibited specific behavioral responses to potential or actual intruders posing different threats to the host colony and to contribute to an understanding of complex ant-eucharitid interactions. Behavioral responses differed significantly according to intruder type. Ants evicted intruders that represented a threat to the colony's health (dead ants) or were not suitable as prey items (filter paper, eucharitid parasitoid wasps, non myrmecophilous adult weevils), but killed potential prey (weevil larvae, termites). The timing of detection was in accordance with the nature and size of the intruder: corpses (a potential source of contamination) were detected faster than any other intruder and transported to the refuse piles within 15 min. The structure and complexity of behavioral sequences differed among those intruders that were discarded. Workers not only recognized and discriminated between several distinct intruders but also adjusted their behavior to the type of intruder encountered. Our results confirm the previously documented recognition capabilities of E. tuberculatum workers and reveal a very fine-tuned intruder discrimination response. Colony-level prophylactic and hygienic behavioral responses through effective removal of inedible intruders appears to be the most general and flexible form of defense in ants against a diverse array of intruders. However, this generalized response to both potentially lethal and harmless intruders might have driven the evolution of ant-eucharitid interactions, opening a window for parasitoid attack and allowing adult parasitoid wasps to quickly leave the natal nest unharmed.

Review of grapevine drought responses and the search for drought-tolerant varieties that can increase the sustainability of viticulture in the context of climate change., Water availability is arguably the most important environmental factor limiting crop growth and productivity. Erratic precipitation patterns and increased temperatures resulting from climate change will likely make drought events more frequent in many regions, increasing the demand on freshwater resources and creating major challenges for agriculture. Addressing these challenges through increased irrigation is not always a sustainable solution so there is a growing need to identify and/or breed drought-tolerant crop varieties in order to maintain sustainability in the context of climate change. Grapevine (Vitis vinifera), a major fruit crop of economic importance, has emerged as a model perennial fruit crop for the study of drought tolerance. This review synthesizes the most recent results on grapevine drought responses, the impact of water deficit on fruit yield and composition, and the identification of drought-tolerant varieties. Given the existing gaps in our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying grapevine drought responses, we aim to answer the following question: how can we move towards a more integrative definition of grapevine drought tolerance?

International audience; In 2011, a survey has been led to approach the role of agricultural activities (agriculture, breeding, fishing, hunting) in the economy of kanak households living in tribes in New Caledonia. The survey focuses on the activities held during the year 2010 and is representative of the population of the tribes at the country level as well as in 10 areas within the 3 provinces of New Caledonia. A set of the data collected is available at the following link: https://dataverse.cirad.fr (DOI: 10.18167/DVN1/VWWVXU). In order to allow people to use them for further analysis, this paper describes the conceptual framework, the nature and quality of the data.; -Afin d'appréhender le rôle essentiel du travail de la terre et des activités de prélèvement (pêche et chasse) dans l'économie des tribus en Nouvelle-Calédonie, une enquête représentative de l'ensemble du pays, jusqu'à un niveau de 10 unités territoriales au sein des 3 provinces, a été réalisée en 2011 sur les activités de l'année 2010. Une partie des données de cette enquête est accessible au lien suivant : https:// dataverse.cirad.fr

We performed a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) of a bio-based cosmetic cream containing Refined Palm Kernel Oil (RPKO). The objective was to investigate the importance of the RPKO production within the environmental impact of the cosmetic cream. We assumed a baseline scenario with best oil palm agricultural practices in Malaysia, and then tested different parameters, i.e. deforestation, peat soil drainage and improved effluent treatment, in order to check their influences. In the baseline scenario, transport of the cosmetic cream was the main contributing process (largest contribution for 11 out of 15 impact indicators). Contribution of the packaging of the cosmetic cream was also significant (largest for 2 out of 15). RPKO had a low impact contribution in the baseline scenario, albeit a much more critical one in the alternative scenarios. Deforestation and peat soil drainage (i.e. transformation and occupation) influenced two environmental indicators: Climate Change and Land Use. On Climate change indicator, deforestation caused an increase of about 9% of the cosmetic cream impacts and peat soil occupation an increase of 16%. On Land Use indicator, deforestation caused an increase of 3%, peat soil transformation and occupation caused increases of 938% and 41%, respectively. Methane capture from palm oil mill effluent treatment and conversion to electricity represented a low decrease of environmental impact of cosmetic cream (from −0.1% to −2.8%). This paper showed that the palm oil agricultural phase could have a non-negligible impact over the life-cycle of a cosmetic cream in case of deforestation and peat cultivation, despite its small contribution in both mass and economic terms.

Economic growth and rising food consumption in the world have led to increased production of organic wastes due to an important intensification of the agricultural production systems. The analysis of macro elements (nitrogen [N], phosphorus [P], and potassium [K]) in organic wastes reveals that the economic loss is significant with the intensification of the agricultural system. The good management of those wastes would be an effective means of organic matter restoration through carbon restitution to the depleted soils through organic amendments. Composting is a type of waste processing that has gained increasing acceptance over the years. As a rule, the process consists of the natural biological decomposition of organic waste components and involves diverse species of microorganisms. Those organic residues could reconstitute soils and be an important fertilization backup. Composts prepared from different organic wastes differ in their quality and stability, which further depends upon the composition of raw material used for the compost production. Compost quality is closely related to its stability and maturity. The wide variety of chemical and biological variations that occur during composting, and the range of methods suggested in literature, has made it difficult to agree on methods for the practical assessment of maturity. A literature review of the main start-up, monitoring and maturity parameters are discussed concerning different raw materials used and different composting methods practiced.

Antimicrobial use in pig farming is influenced by a range of risk factors, including herd characteristics, biosecurity level, farm performance, occurrence of clinical signs and vaccination scheme, as well as farmers’ attitudes and habits towards antimicrobial use. So far, the effect of these risk factors has been explored separately. Using an innovative method called multiblock partial least-squares regression, this study aimed to investigate, in a sample of 207 farrow-to-finish farms from Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden, the relative importance of the six above mentioned categories or ‘blocks’ of risk factors for antimicrobial use in pig production. Four country separate models were developed; they showed that all six blocks provided useful contribution to explaining antimicrobial use in at least one country. The occurrence of clinical signs, especially of respiratory and nervous diseases in fatteners, was one of the largest contributing blocks in all four countries, whereas the effect of the other blocks differed between countries. In terms of risk management, it suggests that a holistic and country-specific mitigation strategy is likely to be more effective. However, further research is needed to validate our findings in larger and more representative samples, as well as in other countries.

The European Union (EU) is the world's third largest producer of beef. This contributes to the economy, rural development, social life, culture and gastronomy of Europe. The diversity of breeds, animal types (cows, bulls, steers, heifers) and farming systems (intensive, extensive on permanent or temporary pastures, mixed, breeders, feeders, etc) is a strength, and a weakness as the industry is often fragmented and poorly connected. There are also societal concerns regarding animal welfare and environmental issues, despite some positive environmental impacts of farming systems. The EU is amongst the most efficient for beef production as demonstrated by a relative low production of greenhouse gases. Due to regional differences in terms of climate, pasture availability, livestock practices and farms characteristics, productivity and incomes of beef producers vary widely across regions, being among the lowest of the agricultural systems. The beef industry is facing unprecedented challenges related to animal welfare, environmental impact, origin, authenticity, nutritional benefits and eating quality of beef. These may affect the whole industry, especially its farmers. It is therefore essential to bring the beef industry together to spread best practice and better exploit research to maintain and develop an economically viable and sustainable beef industry. Meeting consumers' expectations may be achieved by a better prediction of beef palatability using a modelling approach, such as in Australia. There is a need for accurate information and dissemination on the benefits and issues of beef for human health and for environmental impact. A better objective description of goods and services derived from livestock farming is also required. Putting into practice "agroecology" and organic farming principles are other potential avenues for the future. Different future scenarios can be written depending on the major driving forces, notably meat consumption, climate change, environmental policies and future organization of the supply chain.

International audience; Solid state anaerobic digestion (SSAD) with leachate recirculation is an appropriate method for the valorization of agriculture residues. Rape straw is a massively produced residue with considerable biochemical methane potential, but its degradation in SSAD remains poorly understood. A thorough study was conducted to understand the performance of rape straw as feedstock for laboratory solid state anaerobic digesters. We investigated the methane production kinetics of rape straw in relation to cellulose accessibility to cellulase and the microbial community. Improving cellulose accessibility through milling had a positive influence on both the methane production rate and methane yield. The SSAD of rape straw reached 60% of its BMP in a 40-day pilot-scale test. Distinct bacterial communities were observed in digested rape straw and leachate, with Bacteroidales and Sphingobacteriales as the most abundant orders, respectively. Archaeal populations showed no phase preference and increased chronologically. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd

International audience; In order to meet the legislative demands of new energy policy, investment in anaerobic digestion and biogas production has increased in recent years, making it a versatile and fully established technology. So as to remain competitive, anaerobic digestion should be optimized not only at the level of the process, but also down and upstream, in which biomass storage prior to digestion is included. Ensiling is a commonly used and promising techniques to store wet biomass before anaerobic digestion. This article reviews the crucial parameters for ensiling agricultural wastes and crops for biogas production, as source properties, storage management and duration, temperature or additives. According to the reported findings in the bibliography, feedstock and its biochemical characteristics will define the course of ensiling and the impact of other parameters during storage as well. Good silage preservation will occur for feedstocks with low moisture content, high accessible carbohydrates and low buffering capacity. High packing density and reduced particle size will contribute to minimize energy losses during ensiling. Additives are widely used but are not always an asset for methane potential conservation and their application should be more appropriate for poorly ensilable biomass. Finally, evidences suggest that under specific conditions, ensiling may increase methane potential despite non-negligible organic matter losses during storage. Exposing the answers given by the literature in terms of impact of different conditions in the course of ensiling and the questions still unresolved, this article highlights the good management practices of substrates for biogas production.

Highlight Tomato quality could be improved under deficit irrigation while maintaining yield. The underlying genetic architecture is polygenic and varies with water availability. Candidate genes related to primary metabolism were identified., Water scarcity constitutes a crucial constraint for agriculture productivity. High-throughput approaches in model plant species identified hundreds of genes potentially involved in survival under drought, but few having beneficial effects on quality and yield. Nonetheless, controlled water deficit may improve fruit quality through higher concentration of flavor compounds. The underlying genetic determinants are still poorly known. In this study, we phenotyped 141 highly diverse small fruit tomato accessions for 27 traits under two contrasting watering conditions. A subset of 55 accessions exhibited increased metabolite contents and maintained yield under water deficit. Using 6100 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), association mapping revealed 31, 41, and 44 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) under drought, control, and both conditions, respectively. Twenty-five additional QTLs were interactive between conditions, emphasizing the interest in accounting for QTLs by watering regime interactions in fruit quality improvement. Combining our results with the loci previously identified in a biparental progeny resulted in 11 common QTLs and contributed to a first detailed characterization of the genetic determinants of response to water deficit in tomato. Major QTLs for fruit quality traits were dissected and candidate genes were proposed using expression and polymorphism data. The outcomes provide a basis for fruit quality improvement under deficit irrigation while limiting yield losses.

ObjectiveTo assess the prevalence of household food insecurity (FI) in France and to describe its associations with socio-economic factors, health behaviours, diet quality and cost (estimated using mean food prices).DesignCross-sectional nationally representative survey. FI was assessed using an adapted version of the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Insufficiency Indicator; dietary intake was assessed using a 7 d open-ended food record; and individual demographic, socio-economic and behavioural variables were assessed using self-administered questionnaires and interviews. Individuals experiencing FI were compared with food-secure individuals, the latter being divided into four categories according to quartiles of their income per consumption unit (FS1 to FS4). Differences among categories were analysed usingχ2tests, ANOVA and tests for trend.SettingIndividual and National Dietary Survey (INCA2), 2006–2007.SubjectsAdults aged 18–79 years (n2624).ResultsIndividuals experiencing FI represented 12·2 % of the population. They were on average younger, more frequently women and single parents with children compared with those in the other four categories. Their mean income per consumption unit was higher than that in the FS1 category, but they reported poorer material and housing conditions. The prevalence of smoking and the mean daily time spent watching television were also higher in the FI category. No significant difference among categories was found for energy intake, but mean intakes of fruits, vegetables and fish were lower, and diet quality was slightly but significantly poorer in the FI category. Daily diet cost was also lower in the FI category.ConclusionsFrance is not spared by FI. FI should be routinely monitored at the national level and research should be promoted to identify effective strategies to reduce nutrition inequalities in France.

International audience; In recent years, production and use of bio-pesticides have increasing and replacing some synthetic chemical pesticides applied to food commodities. In this review, biological control is focused as an alternative, to some synthetic chemical treatments that cause environmental, human health, and food quality risks. In addition, several phytopathogenic microorganisms have developed resistance to some of these synthetic chemicals and become more difficult to control. Worldwide, the bio-pesticides market is growing annually at a rate of 44% in North America, 20% in Europe and Oceania, 10% in Latin and South American countries and 6% in Asia. Use of agro-industrial wastes and solid-state fermentation (SSF) technology offers an alternative to bio-pesticide production with advantages versus conventional submerged fermentations, as reduced cost and energy consumption, low production of residual water and high stability products. In this review, recent data about state of art regarding bio-pesticides production under SSF on agroindustrial wastes will be discussed. SSF can be defined as a microbial process that generally occurs on solid material in the absence of free water. This material has the ability to absorb water with or without soluble nutrients, since the substrate must have water to support the microorganism's growth and metabolism. Changes in water content are analyzed in order to select the conditions for a future process, where water stress can be combined with the best spore production conditions, obtaining in this way an inexpensive biotechnological option for modern agriculture in developing countries.

International audience; Modelling anaerobic digestion processes is a key aspect of studying and optimizing digesters and related waste streams. However, for the satisfactory prediction of biogas production and effluent characteristics, some parameters have to be calibrated according to the characteristics of the substrates. This article describes a calibration procedure for the IWA 'Anaerobic Digestion Model no. 1' applied to the modelling of a digester for treatment of pig slurry. The most sensitive parameters were selected and calibrated combining results from a continuous digester and from batch trials run with the sludge sampled from the digester and the addition of specific substrates. According to the sensitivity analysis, acetoclastic methanogenesis, acetogenesis of propionate and acidogenesis of sugars were identified as the main sensitive steps in our case. The calibration procedure led us to modify slightly acetogenesis of propionate kinetic. However, acetoclastic methanogenesis and acidogenesis of sugars kinetics were significantly reduced by decreasing km and increasing K-s. Indeed, for instance, a decrease of k(m_ac) from 8 to 7 day(-1) combined with an increase of K-s_ac from 0.15 to 1.5 kgCOD/m(3) was necessary. After calibration, ADM1 provides an accurate simulation of the continuous reactor results.

chapitre 2; International audience; The competitiveness and sustainability of the biodiesel and vegetable oil market can be achieved through increasing the quantity of total biomass cultivated and the yield of the vegetable oil. Furthermore, pre-treatment technologies aiming to increase the bulk density and decrease the water content of the biomass can be employed to reduce the cost of biomass transportation and storage. The valorisation of the by-products (straw, stalk, leaves) through conversion processes into high-value-added chemicals and biomaterials as well as energy also contributes to improving the economics of the whole biorefinery scheme.

FR2116; International audience; Long term composting induces loss of C and organic matter stabilisation. These two processes may have opposite effects on long term carbon storage in soils. To check whether raw materials should be composted or not before being spread on the soil, changes in particle size fractions were quantified during composting of 9 tons of sewage sludge and straw. Both the mass of the fine fraction (

Hypersaline effluents are produced by various industrial activities. Such wastewater, rich in both organic matter and salt (35 g l(-1)), is difficult to treat by conventional wastewater treatment processes. It is necessary to use halophilic bacteria. In this study, a bench-scale sequencing batch reactor (SBR) was inoculated with halophilic sediments in order to treat an agri-food effluent containing 120 g salt l(-1). The micro-organisms were able to treat carbon and nitrogen, provided the pH in the reactor was neutralised with phosphoric acid. Soluble COD and Soluble TKN removal attained 83% and 72% respectively. 16S rDNA identification of the halophilic microbial community showed high diversity.

E-Agriculture, or Smart Farming, refers to the design, development, and application of innovative methods to use modern information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning, to move towards more sustainable agricultural and farming practices. The integration of blockchain technology in farming is gaining attention for its potential to migrate from the centralized and monopolistic model that shapes today’s food value chain. This paper highlights the fact that most of today’s blockchain-based farming frameworks focus on food tracking and traceability. Only rarely does research focus on the design of digital marketplaces to support the trading of agricultural goods between farmers and potentially interested third party stakeholders; equally rarely are performance evaluations performed for the proposed frameworks. The latter is where this paper contributes the most by, not only proposing a novel blockchain-based farming marketplace platform (called “FarMarketplace”), but also a comprehensive methodology to help software solution integrators to better understand and measure how a given configuration setting of such a platform can influence the overall quality of service performance in the long run.

CONTEXT Researchers studying agriculture and researchers studying food share common interests in working on the sustainability of agrifood systems. Yet, they form two distinct scientific communities, which often struggle to work together due to both scientific specialization and existing disconnections between agriculture and food production standards. However, there is today a crucial need for research to generate new knowledge and innovations to meet the numerous challenges towards sustainable agrifood systems. OBJECTIVE This paper therefore presents how two scientific communities (those of agriculture and food) collectively explored cross-community research topics, which could foster coupled innovation in agrifood systems. METHODS Two innovative design methods - KCP and matching-building – were combined to propose a dedicated design process fostering this collective exploration of cross-community research topics. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Twenty cross-community priority research topics were thus proposed to address various sustainability challenges. These topics were designed to become common purposes for future research collaborations aiming to produce relevant knowledge to open new avenues for coupled innovation towards more sustainable agrifood systems. The originality of the 20 topics was discussed, in comparison with 25 international papers highlighting research priorities regarding food systems. SIGNIFICANCE The originality of the paper is thus twofold: the article details the original dedicated design method used to build cross-community research topics, and presents the 20 research topics designed using this method.

International audience; This paper investigates agricultural practices during the 1st millennium BCE in Greece. New archaeobotanical data provide fresh insights on the plant economy at the urban centers of Sikyon and Olynthos, dated to the Archaic-Classical period. The results show that the staple economy of Sikyon and Olynthos was based on a broad spectrum. However, the analysis records the presence of taxa such as sesame (Sesamum indicum) and pine (Pinus pinea) that are usually absent in assemblages from Greece. In order to understand the role and the place of these sites within the ancient Greek world, we draw a wider comparison of the ubiquity of the main economic taxa using available archaeobotanical records, covering the Protogeometric period to the end of the Hellenistic period. This paper gives an overview of plants exploited during the 1st millennium BCE and also focuses on the unusual remains recently recovered.

International audience; Precision agriculture is a management concept, which relies on intensive data collection and data processing for guiding targeted actions that improve the efficiency, productivity, and sustainability of agricultural operations. Several studies have assessed the adoption rate of precision agriculture technologies at regional or national scale, but the literature lacks global evaluations of the development of precision agriculture. For this paper, a review of 17 papers was conducted to provide an evaluation of the adoption rate of precision agriculture technologies on field crops farms in developed countries. This review shows a fast development of Global Navigation Satellite System-based technologies (such as guidance system and automatic section control), and yield monitor on combine harvesters, with a rate of adoption ranging from 60 to 80% in 2016. The adoption rate of these technologies is higher for North American farms than for European farms, with an average rate of adoption 17% higher in North America than in Europe. The three technologies closely correlated with variable rate application (soil mapping, variate rate fertilizing, and variable rate seeding) have seen a slower pace of growth, with only a third of the field crops farms of developed countries using automated methods of managing the spatial crop variability and spatial soil variability within a field. Three hypotheses to explain this difference are discussed: successive adoption of technologies, reject of complex technologies and preference for technologies improving working conditions.

Purpose: To advance the discussion of retro-innovation and highlight the implications this has for the provision of agricultural advice and the role of advisors. Design/Methodology/Approach: 70 interviews with farmers and 10 interviews with experts on biological pest control and direct marketing in Latvia were conducted. Findings: Biological pest control and direct marketing in Latvia are practices that challenge existing conceptions of retro-innovation as they exhibit incremental development, while still combining old and new knowledge in a way that transforms farming practices. They also underline the importance of continuous learning and exchange within the farming community, which supplement the knowledge and advice provided by formal advisory organisations, indicating that the practices are highly dependent upon locally embedded sources of knowledge and a balance between formal instruction and informal peer-to-peer learning. This allows them to retain their dynamism and evolve, although more targeted advisory assistance would help to address issues that prevent biological pest control and direct marketing from being more widely adopted. Practical implications: This paper highlights the importance of locally embedded forms of learning and advice provision. A better understanding of these can provide a more solid basis for interventions that aim to encourage widespread adoption of sustainability-oriented practices. Theoretical implications: This paper improves understanding of retro-innovation processes by drawing attention to the disparate motivations driving innovation and the role of continuity in retroinnovation. Originality: This paper advances the discussion on retroinnovation by looking at examples that expand upon existing approaches to it and highlight specific advisory challenges.

International audience; In this discussion piece, eight scholars in geography, urban planning, and agri-food studies from the United States (US) and France engage in a bi-national comparison to deepen our collective understanding of food and land justice. We specifically contextualize land justice as a critical component of food justice in both the US and France in three key areas: access to land for cultivation, urban agriculture, and non-agricultural forms of food provisioning. The US and France are interesting cases to compare, considering the differences and similarities in their colonial and agricultural histories, persistent and systemic race and class-based inequities in land access, and the roles of public bodies and social movements. In this paper, we synthesize literature, share reflections, and offer directions for future scholarship, including a broader comparative research agenda. An important difference we found is in the degree of scholarly attention to race and how it mediates access to land. We also observe that few scholars articulate a clear definition of justice in their work, nor do they share a common justice framework. We hope that this paper contributes to a more robust food and land justice framework for the use of scholars, practitioners and activists.

International audience; This article focuses on the development of the French veterinary profession in the twentieth century and on the importance of sera and vaccines production and use in that process. As an example, it will follow the trajectory of sera against foot-and-mouth disease—a disease disastrous for agricultural production—from the very first researches on viruses and immunization to the production of “immunizing agents” by veterinarians from the veterinary services or by private laboratories that the sanitary norm of controlling animal diseases in France let free to develop and sell during the 1930s. Based on various sources—national archives, archives from private pharmaceutical industries, professional veterinary journals and interviews of retired veterinarians—this paper reveals a completely different image of France often depicted as a state-controlling country through a body of civil servants. On the contrary, it shows how local and private initiatives prevailed in the control of contagious diseases of animals, leaving veterinarians free to establish special relations with farmers and pharmaceutical industries, which were essential to the development of their profession. The paper argues finally that the use of syringes containing sera—and later vaccines—reinforced the medical role of veterinarians who saw both financial benefits in the direct sale of these products and also the core meaning of their work as practitioners of animal medicine.This article is a socio-historical study which relies on various sources: national archives from the Ministry of Agriculture and its veterinary services; archives from the expert body of contagious animal diseases, the Comité Consultatif des Epizooties (Advisory Committee on Epizootics) whose task was to advise the Ministry of Agriculture on the policy to follow; archives from private pharmaceutical industries such as the Mérieux Institute; personal archives of Ludovic and Pierre Blaisot, a physician and a veterinarian involved in the production and use of sera in Normandy. This article also relies on the careful study of professional veterinary journals and especially the journal of the French veterinary union (le Bulletin du Syndicat National des Vétérinaires Français) and also on some interviews of retired veterinarians.

International audience; The purpose of this paper is to analyse different social determinants of the price of agricultural wage labour in a context of transformation of production system in post-socialist areas. In this way, it explores a dimension of social inequalities never specifically analysed in the literature about rural areas of the former USSR. Nevertheless, several hypotheses arise from the literature review: Despite the privatisation of land to former workers of the socialist farms, the price of labour in agriculture contributes to social differentiation in post socialist countryside; Administrative and legal regulation of labour relations have lost their strength to guarantee wage levels because of the dependence of the local government and the new owners of the land on LFEs and local employers after agrarian reforms; A worker's ability to bargain over the price of labour varies according to other transfers and relationships he or she has with the employer and the economic situation of his or her household. To overcome the traditional opposition between structural determinants and individual agency that shape the scientific discussion about price formation, this research is based on an economic ethnography. The different dimensions that frame economics (cultural institutions, state regulations, situation of transactions…) are not separated theoretically, but they are rather analysed as intertwined in social spheres of workers' existences. Here, wage labour and work relations are analysed together with other social scenes, as household production, local power relations and local markets. To do so, the paper rest on interviews and observations led in a village and in an administrative centre in Ukraine. The local data are compared with the situation at the national level through the data base of the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey.

The European response to COVID-19 has revealed an inconvenient truth. Despite having integrated public health concerns across all its policies – be it agriculture, consumer protection, or security –, the Union cannot directly act to save people’s lives. Only member states can do so. Yet when they adopted unilateral measures to counter the spread of the virus, those proved not only ineffective but also disruptive on vital supply chains, by ultimately preventing the flow of essential goods and people across the Union. These fragmented efforts in tackling cross-border health threats have almost immediately prompted political calls for the urgent creation of a European Health Union. Yet this call raises more questions than answers. With the aim to offer a rigorous and timely blueprint to decision-makers and the public at large, this Special Issue of the European Journal of Risk Regulation contextualizes such a new political project within the broader constitutional and institutional framework of EU public health law and policy. By introducing the Special, this paper argues that unless the envisaged Health Union will tackle the root causes of what prevented the Union from effectively responding to COVID-19 – the divergent health capacity across the Union –, it might fall short of its declared objective of strengthening the EU’resilience for cross-border health threats.

Soil degradation is a worsening global phenomenon driven by socio‐economic pressures, poor land management practices and climate change. A deterioration of soil structure at timescales ranging from seconds to centuries is implicated in most forms of soil degradation including the depletion of nutrients and organic matter, erosion and compaction. New soil–crop models that could account for soil structure dynamics at decadal to centennial timescales would provide insights into the relative importance of the various underlying physical (e.g. tillage, traffic compaction, swell/shrink and freeze/thaw) and biological (e.g. plant root growth, soil microbial and faunal activity) mechanisms, their impacts on soil hydrological processes and plant growth, as well as the relevant timescales of soil degradation and recovery. However, the development of such a model remains a challenge due to the enormous complexity of the interactions in the soil–plant system. In this paper, we focus on the impacts of biological processes on soil structure dynamics, especially the growth of plant roots and the activity of soil fauna and microorganisms. We first define what we mean by soil structure and then review current understanding of how these biological agents impact soil structure. We then develop a new framework for modelling soil structure dynamics, which is designed to be compatible with soil–crop models that operate at the soil profile scale and for long temporal scales (i.e. decades, centuries). We illustrate the modelling concept with a case study on the role of root growth and earthworm bioturbation in restoring the structure of a severely compacted soil., This photograph, depicting ant bioturbation, was taken at the compaction recovery experiment at Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland. Together with other biological processes, faunal bioturbation profoundly influences soil structure and thus soil physical and hydraulic properties, hydrological processes and plant growth. The parsimonious model concept developed in this paper, which is designed to be compatible with profile‐scale soil–crop models, allows simulation of the effects of biological agents (e.g. plant roots and soil‐living organisms) on soil structure dynamics.

2441/6dlkudufs68iloa0svbldorevu; International audience; We discuss in this paper the role of the economic and social organization in agriculture and the food industry, in relation with the Health-Agriculture-Food-Environment (HAFEN) concept. The aim is to better understand the potential impact of the implementation of this concept in food consumption and production systems in terms of research needs. The paper suggests a research agenda dedicated to the modes of social and economic organization of key stakeholders in the implementation of nexus-based systems, facilitating the convergence among health, food and environmental objectives. Based on a literature survey, three main topics are discussed: (a) processes and drivers of change of food consumption practices; (b) coordination and multi-agent governance modes to better account for health issues in agrifood systems and (c) the analysis of paradigms that put forward health as an entry point to reshape existing agricultural and food systems, and associated modes of knowledge production. For each of these topics, we suggest a selection of research priorities for the future and conclude with methodological perspectives on the HAFEN.

International audience; Regulating water use in agriculture in water stressed basins is a challenging task. Recent scholarship emphasises the need to combine strong State oversight for achieving the collective extraction caps with considerable leeway to users to allocate water according to local priorities. This form of "co-management" between the State and users aims to improve the implementation of sustainable extraction limits. This model was adopted in France where agricultural user groups share water resources within a capped allocation pool enforced by the State. This paper evaluates whether the allocation rules developed by user groups improve environmental, economic and social performance. A detailed survey was carried out amongst the 54 agricultural user groups created across France. Results suggest that the reform has led to greater awareness amongst irrigators of their water resources and the slow emergence of collective action. Allocation rules have been developed, reflecting local economic and social priorities, as well as the temporal and spatial dynamics of local surface and groundwater resources. Although challenges remain, the research presented in this paper supports co-management to manage agricultural water extraction, and discusses institutional design features that can facilitate its implementation.

International audience; Phenotyping is a major issue for wheat agriculture to meet the challenges of adaptation of wheat varieties to climate change and chemical input reduction in crop. The need to improve the reuse of observations and experimental data has led to the creation of reference ontologies to standardize descriptions of phenotypes and to facilitate their comparison. The scientific literature is largely under-exploited, although extremely rich in phenotype descriptions associated with cultivars and genetic information. In this paper we propose the Wheat Trait Ontology (WTO) that is suitable for the extraction and management of scientific information from scientific papers, and its combination with data from genomic and experimental databases. We describe the principles of WTO construction and show examples of WTO use for the extraction and management of phenotype descriptions obtained from scientific documents.

Pollution of ground-and surface waters with nitrates from agricultural sources poses a risk to drinking water quality and has negative impacts on the environment. At the national scale, the gross nitrogen budget (GNB) is accepted as an indicator of pollution caused by nitrates. There is, however, little common EU-wide knowledge on the budget application and its comparability at the farm level for the detection of ground-and surface water pollution caused by nitrates and the monitoring of mitigation measures. Therefore, a survey was carried out among experts of various European countries in order to assess the practice and application of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level and the differences between countries within Europe. While fertilization planning is practiced in all of the fourteen countries analyzed in this paper, according to current legislation, nitrogen budgets have to be calculated only in Switzerland, Germany and Romania. The survey revealed that methods of fertilization planning and nitrogen budgeting at the farm level are not unified throughout Europe. In most of the cases where budgets are used regularly (Germany, Romania, Switzerland), standard values for the chemical composition of feed, organic fertilizers, animal and plant products are used. The example of the Dutch Annual Nutrient Cycling Assessment (ANCA) tool (and partly of the Suisse Balance) shows that it is only by using farm-specific &ldquo, real&rdquo, data that budgeting can be successfully applied to optimize nutrient flows and increase N efficiencies at the farm level. However, this approach is more elaborate and requires centralized data processing under consideration of data protection concerns. This paper concludes that there is no unified indicator for nutrient management and water quality at the farm level. A comparison of regionally calculated nitrogen budgets across European countries needs to be interpreted carefully, as methods as well as data and emission factors vary across countries. For the implementation of EU nitrogen-related policies&mdash, notably, the Nitrates Directive&mdash, nutrient budgeting is currently ruled out as an entry point for legal requirements. In contrast, nutrient budgets are highlighted as an environment indicator by the OECD and EU institutions.

The rapid development of information and communication technologies and wireless sensor networks has transformed agriculture practices. New tools and methods are used to support farmers in their activities. This paper presents a context-aware system that automates irrigation decisions based on sensor measurements. Automatic irrigation overcomes the water shortage problem, and automatic sensor measurements reduce the observational work of farmers. This paper focuses on a method for developing context-aware systems using ontologies. Ontologies are used to solve heterogeneity issues in sensor measurements. Their main goal is to propose a shared data schema that precisely describes measurements to ease their interpretations. These descriptions are reusable by any machine and understandable by humans. The context-aware system also contains a decision support system based on a rules inference engine. We propose two new ontologies: The Context-Aware System Ontology addresses the development of the context-aware system in general. The Irrigation ontology automates a manual irrigation method named IRRINOV&reg, These ontologies reuse well-known ontologies such as the Semantic Sensor Network (SSN) and Smart Appliance REFerence (SAREF). The decision support system uses a set of rules with ontologies to infer daily irrigation decisions for farmers. This project uses real experimental data to evaluate the implementation of the decision support system.

A bibliographic database of scientific papers published by authors affiliated worldwide, especially focused in Europe and in the European Atlantic Area, and containing the keywords “microalga(e)” or “phytoplankton” was built. A corpus of 79,020 publications was obtained and analyzed using the Orbit Intellixir software to highlight the evolution of the research domain. Publication rates from 1960 to 2019, organization of the research, collaboration networks between countries and organizations, emerging and fading research concepts, major studied species, and associated concepts, as well as journals publishing microalgae research were considered. As a result, of the 79,020 papers published worldwide, 26,137 included authors from Europe (33% of world production) and 6989 from the European Atlantic Area (AA) (27% of European production, 9% of world production). The main worldwide scientific research topics found in this study were phytoplankton, community, bloom, diatoms, distribution, ecosystem, coastal, chlorophyll, zooplankton, photosynthesis, and primary production. At the European scale, the most studied topics were related to the environment, food, chemicals, pigments, protein, feed, and drugs. The highest scientific trends and market opportunities analysis identified bioplastics and biostimulants as top emerging concepts at the European level and agricultural, animal feed, and blue biotechnology at the European AA level.

International audience; This paper reviews the small but growing literature on the water footprint (WF) of livestock production and provides an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of this indicator. We identified 42 papers published in peer-reviewed international journals between 2000 and 2017, which covered the WF of dairy, meat and egg production using life-cycle assessment and WF network methodologies. The WF of livestock products decreases with the level of intensification of the farming system. In addition, the WF of meat is higher than that of either milk or eggs. The WF of beef is much larger than the WFs from sheep, goat, pork and chicken. The WF variation among different animal products is explained by the difference of the feed conversion ratio. Ruminants (cattle, sheep and goat) have a poor feed conversion ratio compared with monogastric animals (poultry and swine). Estimating the WF of livestock production and economic analysis of water use at different stages of production will help farmers and other stakeholders to identify the most demanding activities in term of water use, and implement strategies to improve water-use efficiency. Thus, feed production was identified as the largest contributor of the WF of livestock production. Options to reduce the WF of livestock production include the use of low-WF feeds, more efficient irrigation of crops used for livestock feed, and reduced consumption of animal-sourced protein in human diets through substitution with plant proteins. The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis highlighted the importance of combining WF with other environmental-footprint and sustainability indicators to provide more reliable information for decision makers.

International audience; Food safety crises involving persistent organic pollutants (POPs) lead to systematic slaughter of livestock to prevent contaminants from entering the food chain. Therefore, there is a need to develop strategies to depurate livestock moderately contaminated with POPs to reduce economic and social damage. This study aimed to test undernutrition (37% of energy requirements) combined with mineral oil (10% in total dry matter intake) in nine non-lactating ewes contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) 126 and 153 as a strategy to enhance the depuration of POPs through faecal excretion. To better understand the underlying mechanisms of the depuration process, lipophilic POPs and lipid fluxes were co-monitored in various body and excretion compartments. Body compartments (adipose tissues, muscle, liver and blood) and the total empty body were analyzed for lipids and POPs concentrations and burdens at slaughter, as well as excretion compartments (faeces and wool) collected during the depuration period. Decreases in empty body total and lipid weights were 6-fold higher in underfed and supplemented ewes compared to control ewes. In addition, over the depuration period undernutrition and supplementation treatment increased faecal TCDD, PCBs 126 and 153 excretions by 1.4- to 2.1-fold but tended to decrease wool PCB 153 excretion by 1.4-fold. This induced 2- to 3-fold higher decreases in the empty body POPs burdens for underfed and supplemented ewes. Nonetheless, when expressed relative to the calculated initial empty body burdens, burdens at slaughter decreased only slightly from 97%, 103% and 98% for control ewes to 92%, 97% and 94% for underfed and supplemented ones, for TCDD, PCBs 126 and 153, respectively. Fine descriptions at once of POPs kinetic (companion paper 1) and mass balance (companion paper 2), and of body lipid dynamics were very useful in improving our understanding of the fate of POPs in the ruminants.

Current land use trends show an increasing preference for monocropping – mostly a consequence of policies and incentives aimed at enhancing the intensification of cereals. This shift has caused some to question whether legume–cereal rotations can remain economically viable options for farmers, particularly in the dry areas. In this paper, we present the results of an endogenous switching regression model which suggests, for the first time, that legume–cereal rotations have clear economic advantages over cereal monocropping. Rotations provide higher yields, gross margins, and consumption of wheat and faba beans. Most past economic analyses on rotation used data from experimental stations or small-sized farmer surveys covering only one season and variety. This study makes an important improvement by employing two-year data from a large sample of 1230 farm households and their 2643 fields cultivated with different varieties of wheat and faba beans in the wheat-based production system of Morocco. Assuming a biennial rotation – the fastest cycle possible in a rainfed dryland system, this paper is also the first to demonstrate that joint adoption of rotations and improved faba bean varieties leads to a two-year average gross margin that is US$537/ha (48%) higher than wheat monocropping. This is the highest economic benefit of all available cropping options. A striking result of the study is that, contrary to common expectations, adopters of rotation did not use lesser amounts of nitrogen fertilizer than those monocropping wheat, thereby undermining the ecological benefits of faba bean–wheat rotations. Given that current average applications are below marginal product-maximizing levels, higher marginal yields of nitrogen fertilizers after rotation help explain farmers’ current behavior. Our results suggest that: 1) promoting improved legume varieties may enhance adoption of rotation; and 2) an economic rationale should be used as the main driver of the rotation agenda in the dry areas.

In 2018, the EU Court of Justice ruled that gene edited organisms “are GMOs and are, in principle, subject to the obligations laid down by the GMO directive [EU Directive 2001/18/EC]”. While the EU Court of Justice has established an equivalence between gene edited organisms and GMOs, how have national institutions and committees from EU member states positioned themselves regarding the use of gene editing in agriculture? In order to answer this question, this article examines and compares 11 official reports and position statements from 7 European countries: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Sweden. The various kinds of issues that are addressed and argumentsthat are made in the reports are coded into large categories (innovation, risk, ethics, legislation, etc.) and are analysed. The paper discusses the main similarities and differences in terms of how the governance of gene editing is problematized. For instance, while some reports consider gene editing in terms of technology, risk and regulation, others situate gene editing within larger debates about agriculture, intellectual property, ethics, public participation, and the responsibility of scientists. The paper aims to provide a useful resource to broaden debates on the future regulation of gene editing within and beyond Europe. It also calls for an analysis of the objectification of gene editing: how are gene editedorganisms rendered tangible, discussable and public via policy processes? How are they tied to national territories, identities, histories or products and how does this (re)nationalizing of gene edited organisms matter within and beyond EU member states?

International audience; The increasingly tensions rising between society's need for resources and space on the one hand, and the capacity of the land to support these needs on the other hand lead to unprecedented changes in landscape configuration, and hence, to the environment. This paper analyzes changes in the agricultural landscape of Podoleni, Neamt County, Romania, in spatio-temporal terms, as a result of the modernization of the ground processing techniques, types of crops, and the degree of fragmentation of land parcels. The study was conducted using Geographical Information Systems techniques, the main materials used in the analysis are topographic maps from different representative periods, and the 2006 orthophotomaps. Application of GIS techniques at a detailed scale (1:5000) allows an efficient management of land use for local authorities. The results highlight the optimal management of agricultural land so as to maintain a balance between their basic function (food needs) and preservation of nature (landscape, environment).

International audience; We develop a fast-deployed crop health monitoring system using state-of-the-art technologies to collect data from crop fields in order to take appropriate and timely actions. For the proposed resource optimized system, Saudi Arabian agriculture is taken as a case study. To achieve the desire goals, we harness IoT (Internet of Things) and drones in agriculture to establish rapid system deployment. This paper focuses on the data collection from crop field by organizing heterogeneous IoT devices in clusters and localise them for data harvesting. Clusters are formed by considering the path of UAVs, sensors heterogeneity, weather conditions, fluctuation of sensor nodes, and the communication cost of IoT devices. For localisation, carrying larger or heavier arrays of antennas and receivers with a small size UAV is also a major issue considered in this paper. Hence, we introduce a dynamic clustering and virtual antenna array to develop a complete data collection scheme supported by simulations and experimental tests with proof-of-concept devices. The results are analysed and found promising in terms of energy efficiency, throughput, ease of use, and deployment time. Whole the system is developed with the concept that it can install in rural and remote area with minimum deployment time and agile enough that can collect data in worst conditions (bad weather, hostile environment, fluctuating nodes, poor infrastructure, with or without an established network). In broader sense it can map easily in many similar applications where data is needed to be harvested from a wide range of heterogeneous sensors without existing any infrastructure and ground topology.

International audience; This paper presents a theoretical model of the farmer’s decision to adopt alternative technologies in agriculture. The decision concerns the allocation of lands for old and new technology. We consider the case where organic production requires adoption of a new/alternative technology to be profitable. This paper suggests that an entirely theoretical exercise can illuminate parts of this complex issue which empirical work has not been able to reach. We show the importance of (1) the available quantity of land devoted to agriculture, (2) the productivity of the new/alternative technology, (3) the incentive mechanism and finally, (4) the constraints on output of the new/alternative technology. The results of this article are not confined to the agricultural sector. The insights apply to other technology decisions.

This paper is the first to uncover in details the impact of different families of disasters on exports from 1979 to 2000 (storms, floods, earthquakes and changes in temperatures). Besides, our paper is the first to compare in a quasi-systematic way the results across the two datasets at hand, the standard \emph{EM-DAT} data and \emph{GeoMet} data, a newly available dataset based on geophysical and meteorological data (\citet{Felbermayr2013} and \citet{Felbermayr2014}). We run series of regressions while accounting progressively for the characteristics of products (all traded goods v/s agriculture ones), the characteristics of the country (size, level of development) and the intensity of the catastrophes. When pooling all countries, and all types of disasters, we do not find any statistical impact on exports. But when focusing on each of them separately and on agricultural goods, the occurrence of an earthquake appears to reduce exports of about 3\%, regardless of its location. A windstorm shock, even when it happens to be very severe, has hardly any impact. A flood, on its side, is estimated to reduce export flows of a small country by nearly 3\%. The effect of changes in temperatures is ambiguous. All in all, except for temperatures related disasters, the results are consistent across both datasets, EM-DAT and GeoMet, although they appear to be slightly more in line with our expectations in the case of GeoMet.

International audience; Whereas scholars in entrepreneurship have focused their studies on various entrepreneurial situations, little is known about entrepreneurship in agriculture. Using the Scopus database, we analyse 229 papers related to this topic to understand what entrepreneurship means in agriculture, why this topic is growing, and who publishes and where. This paper provides quantitative results that can be useful for scholars, consultants and decision makers. It also provides a qualitative analysis of the topic, showing a structure for the idea of change: agri-entrepreneurship appears as a new paradigm based on the implementation of deliberate strategies to respond to liberalisation and sustainability. These results are discussed while taking into account the criticism of liberalisation and sustainable concerns. We show that the debates on liberalisation do not question the legitimacy of the agri-entrepreneurship topic but rather question the way farmers undertake it and how entrepreneurship can reinforce the resilience of farms.