INRAE and Agence Bio have signed their first framework agreement
During the International Agricultural Show, Philippe Mauguin, President and CEO of INRAE, and Laure Verdeau, Director of the Agence Bio - the French Agency for the Development and Promotion of Organic Agriculture (AB), signed their first framework agreement.
While the European Union is committed to devoting at least 25% of agricultural land to organic farming by 2030, the rise of this type of production raises many questions for research and field professionals. The two partners have been working together for many years, pooling their complementarities, and now wish to structure their collaboration to better share knowledge and data on the challenges and levers that need to be addressed in order to tackle the issue of scaling up organic farming.
© INRAE
In view of the environmental, economic, and social challenges facing the agricultural and food sector, organic farming is seen as a viable solution that needs development. 9 out of 10 French people said they consumed organic products in 2020. But will it be possible to reach 50% or even more of the world's organic production tomorrow? Under what conditions? We need to analyze the various agronomic, economic, and social aspects to be considered, as well as public policies, work on obstacles and levers, and converge the results already obtained or in the process of being obtained, in order to respond to the problem of scaling up organic agriculture. These are some of the questions that INRAE is working on, specifically in the framework of its METABIO metaprogram, which explores the hypothesis of a national supply of organic products becoming dominant.
Understanding the dynamics of organic development to structure it
Given this scale change issue, the two partners wish to strengthen their collaboration on the dynamics of AB development and its impacts on the entire agri-food chain, both on the supply side, at the level of farms and territories, and on the demand side (processing, consumers). The objective is also to better understand the conditions under which the different agricultural systems, organic, agro-ecological, and conventional, could coexist. For the Agence Bio, this knowledge will help promote and structure French organic agriculture.
The topics of common work cover a wide range:
- Bio-technical and organizational barriers in farms in conversion and/or converted to organic farming
- Processing and marketing of organic products
- Knowledge of the consumer, food behaviors, and their effects on health
- The territorial dimension of the organization and development of organic farming
- Environmental and climatic impacts of organic agriculture
- Market dynamics and their determinants
- Food security and autonomy
- Measures and actions of public policies
To this end, the work will be based on the exploitation of data from organic operators issued from the ONAB documentary database piloted by the Agence Bio, and on the INRAE network of experimental AB systems.
The partnership will take the form of joint development of research projects and participation in discussion and governance bodies on the subject of organic farming development. INRAE and Agence Bio will also strive to promote the results of their work, in the form of training or joint information activities.
For more information, visit
inrae.fr