All the news

• FACCEJPI and SusCrop join forces for March call
  

  The Joint Programming Initiative on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (FACCEJPI) and the SusCrop – ERA-NET Cofund on Sustainable Crop Production are joining forces to launch a call for research projects addressing agrobiodiversity.

• Latest ENDURE News now online
  

  The latest edition of ENDURE News is now available online. For those who do not subscribe to the newsletter, it offers a handy summary of all the news added to the website over the past six months.

• French EU Presidency Seminar for June 2022
  

  Organisers have launched a call for papers for a conference being held as part of a two-day seminar addressing ‘What research to meet the pesticides reduction objectives embedded in the European Green Deal?’ The event is being held on June 2 and 3 2022 in Dijon, France and will bring together researchers and professionals from across Europe to discuss the latest scientific advances which can significantly cut chemical pesticide use.

• Save the date: SusCrop events in 2022
  

  SusCrop, the ERA-Net Cofund Action aiming to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of sustainable crop production through enhanced cooperation and coordination of different national and regional research programmes, has issued a save the date for 2022.

• New agroecology publications available
  

  Freely available new publications in the field of agroecology include a review of agroecological transitions, with a particular focus on deterministic and open-ended perspectives, while the ‘26th dossier d’Agropolis’ is devoted to research and partnerships in agroecology with a focus on the partnership between France and the CGIAR. In addition, in early December The Global Alliance for the Future of Food released a new compendium titled ‘The Politics of Knowledge: Understanding the Evidence for Agroecology, Regenerative Approaches, and Indigenous Foodways’.

• ‘Potential gold-mine’ for wheat breeders
  

  Scientists at Rothamsted Research have made a series of unexpected discoveries within the wheat genome which they say should lead to new wheat varieties over the coming years. These varieties could include improved traits such as greater disease resistance and better adaptation to climate change.

• New Phoma-causing fungus variant in Europe
  

  A new threat to oilseed rape (OSR) crops has been identified for the first time in Europe. The UK’s Rothamsted Research reports that a variant of a fungus that causes Phoma in OSR and other brassicas has been identified in southern England and Northern Ireland.

• Plants for the Future: report available
  

  Experts have identified three principles to help the transition towards more sustainable agricultural systems which meet the goals of the European Union’s Green Deal in a report which envisions how agriculture will be likely to evolve in the short, medium and long term.

• Going bananas…in the Netherlands!
  

  When we think of banana production, the Netherlands might not be the first country to come to mind. But bananas were indeed harvested in the country last week, the first crop from the Neder Banaan greenhouse in the town of Ede, central Netherlands. The greenhouse is the result of a collaboration with researchers from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and is using new cultivation methods and banana varieties that will contribute to more sustainable banana cultivation worldwide.

• ABIM 2021: Catch up online
  

  If you could not attend October’s Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting (ABIM), either in person or online, you can catch up with some of the key events via ABIM’s YouTube channel. These include the meeting’s keynote addresses, a TV-style panel discussion and the Bernard Blum Award for biocontrol innovation.