Organised by French partners CIRAD and INRA, with local input from the Institute of Life Sciences at Italy’s Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, the event will be held at the well-equipped Scuola Internazionale di Alta Formazione (SIAF) conference centre, which has hosted the ENDURE summer schools, from February 11 to 16, 2018.

The training course is designed to help participants better understand the concepts of ACP, the methods and tools for their implementation and to jointly exchange on the principles of ACP. The course is also aiming to engage participants in a collective dynamic for ACP and develop collaborations as well as research projects, with concrete deliverables, videos, articles, and training resources.

The organisers note:  “The principles, approaches, axes, pillars and implementation strategies of Agroecological Crop Protection (ACP) at the field and landscape levels are not the same as those known to date. Therefore, ACP represents a new field of research and applications yet to be thoroughly studied and disseminated.

“In line with current objectives assigned to crop protection, ACP creates a breakthrough in cropping system design and in the management of interstitial spaces, switching from agrochemistry to agroecology.

“ACP is the underlying framework of this training course: review of the principles of ACP, critical analysis of the evolution of crop protection, and results of participatory experiments under various production systems.

“Particular attention will be paid to the role of modelling approaches in designing agroecological cropping systems based on ACP, as well as on activities in this new context, with specific reference to researchers (e.g. new knowledge to be acquired, multicriteria evaluation, inter-disciplinarity). Finally, this training course will propose practical recommendations to help implement the agroecological transition, for temperate as well as tropical agroecosystems.”

The lecturers lined up for the week include a number of experts with long-term links to ENDURE, with the complete list comprising:

• Jean-Noël Aubertot, INRA, Toulouse, France
• Paolo Bàrberi, Institute of Life Sciences, Italy
• Nick Birch, The James Hutton Institute, Dundee, Scotland
• Jean-Philippe Deguine, CIRAD, La Réunion, France
• François-Régis Goebel, CIRAD, Montpellier, France
•  Jay Ram Lamichhane, INRA, Toulouse, France
• Camilla Moonen, Institute of Life Sciences, Italy
• Alain Ratnadass, CIRAD, La Réunion, France
• Kris Wyckhuys, CIAT, Hanoï, Vietnam  

A maximum of 30 participants can be accommodated, with applicants selected by a scientific committee. Applications, including a CV and letter of motivation, should be sent to Camilla Moonen by November 20, 2017.  

For more information:

• Download the TC-ACP 18 flyer (please feel free to share it with colleagues):
  Flyer TC-ACP 18 (LR) [pdf - 1,002.65 kB]