All the news

• Network launched for enhanced fruit production
  

  A thematic network focusing on fruit production in the European Union has been launched, with the ambition of unleashing, stimulating and using Europe’s research potential to exploit new opportunities in the fresh produce category. Called EUFRUIT, it brings together 21 partners from 12 different countries and is being funded under the Horizon 2020 programme.

• May closing event for AMIGA project
  

  The closing event of the AMIGA project (Assessing and Monitoring the Impacts of Genetically modified plants on Agro-ecosystems) is being held in Brussels on May 10 and 11, 2016, marking the end of 54 months of laboratory, field experiments and mathematical modelling involving 22 research groups in 15 countries.

• Scottish partner hosts Technical Day
  

  The James Hutton Institute, ENDURE’s Scottish partner, staged a Technical Day for Farmers on June 9 this year. Building on the successful event two years ago, the 2016 Technical Day highlighted science and practice around topical issues including soil management and soil conservation, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), nitrogen usage and cycling including N-fixation, precision agriculture and the design of field margins and boundaries.

• New project to ‘deepen sustainability’
  

  A new European Union-funded project has been launched to “deepen the roots of sustainability in agri-food systems by harnessing scientific and local knowledge, people’s energy, motivation and innovation skills around the theme of agro-biodiversity by making use of novel, improved and demand-driven ICT (information communications technology) solutions”.

• Reducing reliance on conventional pesticides
  

  Experts from ENDURE and the European Research Area Network in Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERA-Net C-IPM) have reviewed the current state of the art of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) research and development, with a particular focus on how European agriculture is moving from conventional crop protection systems to IPM systems less reliant on pesticides, the major challenges encountered during this transition and future priorities to overcome existing IPM R&D challenges and so facilitate the uptake of more sustainable crop protection systems in European agriculture.

• New group to boost European agroecology
  

  A new association has been created to promote agroecology in Europe. Called Agroecology Europe, its 19 founding members come from 10 countries across the continent, including representatives from several ENDURE partners.

• Apply now: PhD in Agrobiodiversity
  

  Applications are now being accepted for the International PhD Programme in Agrobiodiversity, run by the Institute of Life Sciences at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa, in Italy.

• Masters in Plant Health is launched
  

  A consortium of six of European universities with experience in both general and specific aspects of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is to offer a Masters course in ‘Plant health in sustainable cropping systems’ (known simply as PlantHealth) from September 2016.

• International conference for ecological sciences
  

  Abstracts are now being accepted for the French Ecological Society’s 2016 international conference (Sfécologie 2016), which will run from October 24 to 28 in Marseille, France, and host around 500 oral contributions and 400 posters.

• Conference: What future for farming systems?
  

  The biennial conference organised by SRUC, Scotland’s Rural College, and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency this year addresses the theme ‘What Future for our Farming Systems? Environmental Challenges and Integrated Solutions.’