All the news

• Can we grow without PPPs?
  

  The European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) has published an In-depth Analysis report and staged an accompanying workshop addressing the topic ‘Farming without plant protection products: Can we grow without using herbicides, fungicides and insecticides?’

• Using agroecology in weed control
  

  Examples of European research efforts to use agroecological principles in support of Integrated Weed Management (IWM) have been shared in a recent blog post on the Agricology website. Agricology is a community bringing farmers and researchers together to share knowledge in pursuit of “practical sustainable farming regardless of labels”.

• France’s €30m research programme underway
  

  France has officially launched its €30 million research programme designed to deliver high-performance, more sustainable agriculture that uses pesticides only as a last resort. It is seeking to produce agricultural systems based on prevention (prophylaxis) and agroecology, and will also address changes in value chains.

• Online resources to avoid glyphosate use
  

  An online resource centre has been created in France to support farmers seeking to avoid glyphosate use. The French government announced last year that glyphosate would no longer be an option for most uses within three years and within five years it would no longer be used for any purpose.

• SusCrop: First newsletter available
  

  The first newsletter from SusCrop is now available. SusCrop is an ERA-Net Cofund Action under H2020, which “aims 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”.

• How are the neighbours implementing IPM?
  

  ENDURE’s Danish partners, SEGES and Aarhus University, have completed a report detailing the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) implementation efforts made in seven neighbouring countries with broadly similar growing conditions. In addition to the original Danish version, the report has now been translated into English and a French version is available from France’s IPM portal, EcophytoPIC.

• Systems Summer School: Grab the last few places!
  

  The last few places are available for next month's International Summer School, which is being organised by ENDURE and its partners. Running from June 23 to 28, in Volterra, Italy, it will address ‘Methodological Approaches to System Experiments’ and is designed for researchers, engineers and PhD students involved in the design, monitoring and exploitation of systems experiments. Feel free to share the flyer (download below)..

• European Conference on Crop Diversification
  

  The programme for the European Conference on Crop Diversification, which will run from September 18 through to September 21, 2019, in Budapest, Hungary, is now available. It is being organised by DiverIMPACTS (Diversification through Rotation, Intercropping, Multiple Cropping, Promoted with Actors and value-Chains towards Sustainability) and other projects targeting crop diversification.

• DiverIMPACTS video explores strip cropping
  

  The latest video from the DiverIMPACTS Horizon 2020 project explores the benefits of strip cultivation, focusing on the work of Wageningen University & Research (WUR) with Dutch farmers. Researchers are conducting “new large-scale strip trials to see if crop diversity can fulfil its promise of supporting a robust, plant-based food production system”.

• Yield losses estimated for key global crops
  

  A major study has been published estimating the impact of pests and diseases on five major food crops around the world. An international team, including scientists from France’s INRA (National Institute of Agricultural Research) and other institutions around the world, supported by the International Society for Plant Pathology (ISPP), spent more than a year compiling statistics on wheat, rice, maize, soy and potato. Their results have been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.