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INRA and CIRAD have launched the Agrimonde (Agricultures et alimentations du monde en 2035) prospective study

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04.09.2006

Current trends - the emergence of new agricultural production areas, opportunities in terms of bioenergies and changing diets, particularly in developing countries - will have consequences for the supply and demand balance on a global level.

Managing to preserve the world's resources while alleviating poverty and inequality is a major issue for sustainable development, and for global geopolitical equilibria and the relations between industrialized countries and the wide range of developing countries.

INRA and CIRAD* are planning a prospective study on agriculture and food worldwide in 2035 (Agrimonde), over two years (2006 and 2007). The study should serve to foresee the role of French and European agriculture in the different global change scenarios and pinpoint the fundamental issues with which agricultural research will be faced. This prospective exercise will give CIRAD and INRA the means to forecast and prepare for the future in terms of publi research systems and priorities as well as of their strategic position on an international level.

The study as a whole will be based on the results of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (an international assessment and prospective exercise on ecosystems ordered by the UN in 2001 and conducted between 2001 and 2005) and will fit in with current work under the International Agricultural Assessment of Science and Technologies for Development (IAASTD, an agricultural prospective study launched in 2002 by the United Nations and the World Bank).

INRA and CIRAD are both commissioners and joint project managers. The Head of the INRA prospective studies unit is in charge of the operation, which will be conducted by a mixed CIRAD-INRA team. A committee of experts, consisting of around twenty people chosen for their expertise, will provide scientific and methodological advice. The results of the work are due to be published in 2008.

* INRA and CIRAD conduct research on issues linked to agriculture, food and food safety, the environment and territorial management, with particular emphasis on sustainable development. INRA is more interested in temperate areas and CIRAD in the intertropical belt.

Helen Burford | Source: alphagalileo
Further information: www.cirad.fr/en/presse/communique.php?id=196

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