The Diet+ project proposes to analyse diets in France, by focusing on the relationships between the market mechanisms and the overall quality of diet, including the quality of the consumption, the possible improvements in the foods quality, the quality of the environment, the land use, and the possible improvements in public health. This project will particularly study the impact of diets changes on consumers, supply chains and farmers. These diets changes may come from both food innovations and/or policies aiming at improving both environment and public health. Applied microeconomics combined with food science/engineering will be used for analysing various markets adjustments and possible improvements in supply chains. Econometrics works, experimental economics, industrial analyses will lead to quantified estimates of various markets adjustments coming from these changes in diets. The objective of Diet+ is to provide precise estimates of impacts of diets changes on consumers, supply chains and farmers, by also considering both environment and public health. The project will be divided in three Work Packages (WP) taking into account various markets adjustments from the land use to the consumers’ health. The WP1 will focus on some changes in diets and their influences on markets and supply chains. The WP2 will detail the foods variety offered to consumers and the foods innovations with their impacts on market structures. Based on results of WP1 and WP2, the WP3 will examine the optimal policy that could improve the overall quality of diets. More precisely, the WP1 will focus on the overall change in diet, and its impact on both supply chains and characteristics related to environment and public health. We will focus on the meat sector that is often in front line regarding scientific and public debates. First, we will assess how a change in the demand for meat would impact overall consumers diet and agricultural production, by linking a demand model with an agricultural production model, assuming no food industry reactions. Second, we will study how this change in the demand for meat would influence consumers’ diet, firms’ profits and market shares of supply chains, by linking a demand model with a supply model for meat, assuming no agricultural producers’ responses. The WP2 will study recent consumption trends regarding food variety and innovation. The first task will focus on animal products with healthy and environmental-friendly characteristics, including the new-vegetal substitutes for meat. The second task will analyse the relationship between the market structure, the level of health and environmental-friendly varieties, and the innovations. We also plan to determine how the health and environmental-friendly characteristics affect the value sharing between producers, manufacturers and retailers. The third task is devoted to design one innovation in the cheese sector, by creating a mixed “animal-vegetal” cheese and by evaluating its consumers’ acceptance. The WP3 will analyse impacts of policies on diets, environment, public health, and their consequences on adjustments in supply chains. We will study the optimal choice of instruments such as per-unit taxes/subsidies, labels and/or standards/norms related to meat and dairy products. We will measure the impact of these policies on agents’ surpluses, environment and public health. Additionally, we will pay attention to the transition from the current agro-food sector to a new model aligned with nutrition and low-carbon objectives, which requires a precise study of “progressive” shifts at each stage of the supply chain. Eventually, WP3 will examine the complementarity between health and environment in the analysis of future policy choices. The combination of these different approaches will give a complete view regarding sustainable policies that directly or indirectly influences behaviours, market mechanisms and sustainability of diets.

This research will: l Identify & validate ‘low cost’ mitigation options l Clarify barriers preventing low-cost mitigation adoption l Deliver new findings to support farmer decision making l Develop & test novel communication/extension strategies l Communicate research findings through various media The reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from dairying and other types of pastoral farming is a significant challenge, requiring engaged, collaborative, and participatory action research to identify the barriers to practise change and adoption at the farm-level. There is currently little evidence to explain the limited adoption of ‘low cost’ options by farmers. This research seeks to identify the barriers to the implementation of low-cost GHG mitigations and explain why apparent win-win mitigation options are not being adopted. Using multiple methods including workshops, literature reviews and desktop analysis, expert consultation, and verification through modelling, evidence-based low-cost GHG mitigation strategies and available management practices will be reviewed, with particular emphasis on the cost-effective measures identified in existing marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) studies. In order to empirically evaluate and further explore the claims of ‘low cost’, a subset of mitigation options able to applied in the varied national contexts of the study will be selected using agreed criteria to further examine their claims of ‘low cost’ within the socio-cultural, economic and environmental contexts of each country. The team will utilise a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods including: micro-econometric analysis, farmer psychometric testing, and farm system and bio-physical modelling. A diagnostic framework to identify barriers & enablers to farmer adoption of selected options will be developed in each country. Using a participatory and collaborative ‘bottom-up’ approach, a deliberation matrix will also be developed for use in stakeholder discussion groups to examine their understanding, assumptions, expectations, & perceptions related to each option. A typology of barriers will be developed via these processes. The typology will inform farmer interview schedules to further identify how & to what extent these barriers influence farmer decision-making and to identify barrier solutions. Selected dairy farmers in each country will then be surveyed to quantify current adoption levels of mitigation options and identified adoption barriers. Action research via farmer video diaries will provide additional real time insights into farmer decision making processes. Finally, farmer and stakeholder feedback will be used to inform farm systems modelling and on-farm GHG trials, mitigation options will test possible barrier solutions to inform possible knowledge transfer (KT) mechanisms. Findings will also enable other scientists to critique the construction/accuracy of MACCs. As a whole, this project will develop a range of novel knowledge transfer methods to inform policy & improve on-farm adoption through a whole systems approach as well as publish new insights into mitigation options, science communication & farm level extension methods.

AZODURE aims to develop Azospirillum inoculation technology for cereal seeds so that it can be implemented in the next decade as an alternative agricultural practice to reduce fertilization needs and plant sensitivity to erratic climatic fluctuations, and satisfy social aspiration for an environmentally friendly agriculture that maximizes field eco-efficiency. Azospirillum is a naturally-occurring associative symbiotic bacterial genus that enhances cereal roots development and performance, therefore enhancing crop performance. AZODURE is a multidisciplinary and industrial research project that innovates on its three objectives : 1/ industrial agroengineering innovation development with concern for the seed inoculation technology and the legal framework; 2/ gain of knowledge on ecosystemic medium-term (4 years) benefits (for plants, soil natural bacterial communities and soil water retention capacity) as well as crop productivity and economic gain; 3/ interaction with the socio-economic, political and higher education actors for outreach and dissemination of technology implementation. Partners and actors will work jointly on 9 closely-linked tasks. The Isère/Porte-des-Alpes (IPA) territory will serve as framework to develop these tasks mobilizing a range of scientific disciplines (microbial ecology, plant ecophysiology, agronomy and soil science, economy, law) along with a range of stakeholders (a private company, farmer organizations, policy makers, education actors).

The interactions between groundwater (GW) and soil moisture (SM) exert a key role to shape the critical zone (CZ), including soils, water resources, ecosystems, near-surface climate, and social systems. In this project, we focus on several interlinked CZ processes: SM increase by capillary rise from GW that is recharged when SM is abundant; GW depletion or exhaustion by irrigation, 38% of which is GW-fed globally; SM, GW, and irrigation response to but also impact on mean climate and extreme events (droughts, heatwaves, floods), ecosystem productivity (wetlands, croplands) and soil carbon. The relative influence of these coupled processes is difficult to apprehend based on observations, as they exhibit contrasting manifestations in space and time, and are subject to increasing anthropogenic pressures. Thus, we will combine advanced numerical modelling and participatory methods to explore their long-term evolution in the Anthropocene (1900-2100), at two spatial scales: a) Global, with factorial simulations by two Earth system models to compare the influence of anthropogenic warming, land-use and irrigation management, and GW-related feedbacks, on past and future CZ pathways; b) Regional in two "focal areas", metropolitan France and the Mekong River basin, to provide contrasting examples of the studied processes and enable anchored transdisciplinary work with stakeholders, social and natural scientists. The goal is to propose tailored narratives for sustainable management, using participatory approaches to iteratively combine expert knowledge, local surveys, high-resolution Earth system simulations, and integrated assessment modelling of land-use and water management. At both scales, we will consider uncertainties to identify robust responses (likely evolutions and trade-offs, e.g. linked to GW failure to sustain irrigation and ecosystems, or climate change attenuation/amplification). Ultimately, the project will help assess the usefulness of global scenarios and projections at regional scales and frame sustainable CZ management strategies at the global scale.

With the shift towards a reduced reliance on external inputs in agriculture, identifying management options that enhance the provision of ecosystem services has become a critical issue. Pest control resulting from the activity of naturally present predators and parasitoids is frequently cited as an important service that could reduce pesticide use as targeted by the French 2018 Ecophyto governmental action. However, the link between management options, pest control level and ultimately crop yield is poorly understood. The PEERLESS project aims to identify alternative management strategies that enhance the crop protection service provided by functional biodiversity and ultimately to optimize agricultural systems, at local and landscape scales, for economic viability and sustainability. PEERLESS brings together six partners organisations with extensive expertise in agronomy, spatial ecology, ecology of interactions and public economy. The project combines: (i) an empirical assessment of naturally occurring crop protection from weed and insects pests in annual (wheat-oilseed rape rotations) and perennial (apple orchards) systems across a broad range of landscape and agronomic situations; (ii) ecological engineering with an assessment of alternative plant protection system to improve crop protection at the local scale; (iii) an in-depth study of the structure of trophic networks; and, (iv) population dynamics of key pests and their regulators in case study areas. These components will support the parametrisation of spatially-explicit, predictive models to (v) test the effect of landscape patterns of alternative local and landscape management strategies on pesticide use, pest control, crop yield and farmer income and (vi) identify landscape scale viable management strategies to control insect and weed pests.