INRA’s flagship program to foster development of solutions for Sustainable Management of Crop Health
Cindy Morris: INRA
<div>Solutions for managing crop health that can be implemented by farmers arise from the interplay of multiple scientific disciplines with complex socioeconomic contexts. To surpass the contributions that disciplinary research provides for crop health, in 2011 France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) created the flagship program “Sustainable Management of Crop Health” (SMaCH) (<a href="http://www.smach.inra.fr/en">http://www.smach.inra.fr/en</a>) as part of 8 programs to address trans-disciplinary societal challenges. SMaCH has leveraged the expertise and motivation of INRA’s scientists to target research results that, in particular, will help farmers meet European Union Directive 2009/128/EC that promotes IPM and the ban of about 75% of currently used active compounds. Since its inception, SMaCH has funded 10’s of research projects, networks, workshops, and scholarships (shown in the poster) to 1) encourage, optimize and manage innovations in crop health management, 2) avoid risks to crop health through surveillance and through resilient and robust agrosystems, 3) manage the biodiversity of agrosystems at regional levels, and 4) describe the strategies of stewards and stakeholders of production and marketing networks. At ICPP-2018 SMaCH will promote their research model and strengthen the international dimension of the crop health management strategies they develop. Part of their work will be presented in the concurrent session “Innovative Pest Control Technologies for Smallholder Farmers”.</div>
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