More than ever, the scale of agricultural, food and environmental challenges calls for ambitious research. In her New Year's speech on January 13th, Marion Guillou, President of INRA, invited all of INRA’s partners to participate in constructing INRA's research priorities. A blog is open to record contributions.
Agriculture faced with the challenges of the 21st century
Preserving the environment, adapting to and fighting against climate change, while maintaining competitive and sustainable agriculture for healthy and quality food, have been at the centre of INRA’s missions for several years.
In order to face population growth, the increased scarcity of resources and global changes, agricultural research is at the heart of the major issues of the 21st century. Agricultural research is expected to provide results which will contribute to:
feeding the planet sustainably
preserving and managing natural resources
producing biomass sustainably
creating innovative dynamics between actors for sustainable agriculture.
INRA is consulting its partners on its research priorities
INRA is elaborating its research priorities for the next 5 years. The scientific orientation document for 2010-2014 will draw conclusions from past activities and take into account the recent assessment of INRA by the AERES. This process, based on collective reflection within the Institute and consultation with its partners, was presented by Marion Guillou, President of INRA, on the occasion of INRA's New Year ceremony on January 13th, 2010.
7 main lines of research
In deliberating on research priorities, five lines of researchhave been identified:
Combining competitiveness and environment for agriculture (with three themes: competitiveness of sectors, agro-ecology of territories and plant and animal health),
Reducing risks and developing ecological services for agriculture and forests,
Better understanding food transitions and their effects: food-health-nutrition relations,
Developing and valorising renewable carbon,
Adapting agriculture and forests to climate change and reducing their contribution to greenhouse gases.
and two transversal lines:
Reinforcing prediction capacities in biology and ecology,
Looking for territorial systemic coherence for world food security
