VALERIE Annual Meeting
Toulouse, France, 23-26th January 2017
The VALERIE team met in Toulouse to discuss project progress and learn more about the French case studies on ‘Agroecology’ and ‘Innovative arable cropping’.
The ask-Valerie.eu search tool will draw from ‘Results in brief’, report summaries and thousands of other useful documents derived from CORDIS, EIP-AGRI; as well as national and scientific journal repositories containing practical documents, technical notes and research papers. The tool will be developed further in the coming months to improve the ranking of documents and the ability to find useful information for innovation within the VALERIE thematic domains (e.g. soil management, crop protection etc.), with a focus on our case studies.
Project partners tested ask-Valere.eu and a prototype communication platform at the INRA Research Centre in Castanet-Tolosan. Eric Justes, VALERIE partner and Head of the VASCO (VArieties and Cropping Systems for an AgrOecological Production: https://www6.toulouse.inra.fr/agir/) research team, then presented the concept of ‘Agroecology’, which seeks to improve the ecosystem services provided by agricultural systems through a better balance between productivity, profitability and the delivery of other services that secure well-being for society. Presentations were given on intercropping, which was shown to provide productivity and profitability benefits in low nitrogen input systems, and oilseed rape/legume companion cropping systems, which have been widely implemented over 250,000 hectares in France. A VALERIE case study video was also presented on the development of an innovative agronomic decision support tool for arable farmers, which focuses on the adjustment of crop rotations and soil, weed and pest management to improve crop performance.
Many thanks to Yolaine Hily, Eric Justes and all our French partners for a most welcoming, productive and informative meeting. Merci à tous!