A look back at the PEPR Agroecology and Digital 2024 annual days: nearly 170 participants gathered on 31 January and 1 February at the University of Rennes' Inria centre

PEPR Agroecology and Digital 2024 annual days: nearly 170 participants gathered on 31 January and 1ᵉʳ February at the University of Rennes' Inria centre. (Replays in french).

These two days provided an opportunity to discuss the challenges, opportunities, expectations, and controversies surrounding the coupling of agroecology and digital technology and to recall the program’s objectives and actions. They were also an opportunity to meet with those who have expressed interest in forming interdisciplinary consortia to respond to the call for research and infrastructure projects launched in 2023, with a closing date of May 14, 2024.

Organized with presentations, round tables, and workshops, these days also gathered and highlighted the doctoral and postdoctoral students who were awarded the 2023 thesis and postdoc project call and recruited as part of the projects launched in 2023. A community of talented young scientists developing skills at the interface between agroecology and digital technology.

The opening session allowed INRAE and Inria, co-leaders of the program, to affirm their support for the program and for SGPI to remind everyone of the importance of this program in France 2030's SADEA acceleration strategy and its links with other funded measures.

Thanks to the speakers for their analyses and suggestions:

  • Patrick Gros - Directeur du centre Inria de l'Université de Rennes
  • Jean-Frédéric Gerbeau – Inria, Directeur général délégué à la science, Inria
  • Carole Caranta - Directrice générale déléguée Science et innovation, INRAE
  • Philippe Vissac - Coordinateur national de la stratégie SADEA
  • Virginie Bernois - Conseillère Agriculture, Alimentation, Forêts au SGPI

Replay below :

 

Session 1: What are the contributions of digital technology to agroecology?

This session illustrated the ongoing dynamics of mobilizing digital technology for agroecology, with three different and complementary focuses: ecology (Thierry Caquet), digital technology (Marc Schoenauer), and agroecology (Christian Huyghe).

  • Perspective from ecologists on the contribution of digital technology to agroecology and the expected impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity – Thierry Caquet, INRAE, Scientific Director of Environment.

Presentation and replay below : 

 

 

  • Artificial intelligence: challenges and opportunities for the environment - Marc Schoenauer, Inria, Research Director.

Presentation and replay below: 

 

 

  • The magnitude of the transitions to be made: opportunities offered by the mobilization of digital technology for agroecology - Christian Huyghe, INRAE, Scientific Director of Agriculture.

 

Session 2: Evolution of jobs in agriculture

The development of agroecological practices requires scientific advances in many fields (genetic characterization, modeling, data science...) as well as a dynamic of innovation, leading to changes in jobs in agriculture. This evolution of jobs was illustrated by the information from the latest agricultural census (Nejla Ben Arfa). Innovations are not solely based on technological solutionism; they were addressed through so-called low-tech approaches (Stéphane Crozat).

  • What the agricultural census teaches us about the evolution of jobs in agriculture related to the use of digital technology - Nejla Ben Arfa, (ESA d'Angers)

Replay below:

 

  • On the importance of low-tech approaches – Stéphane Crozat (Université technologique de Compiègne)

Presentation and replay below :

 

 

Session 3: Advances in the Agroecology and Digital program

The Agroecology and Digital research program aims to fund high-potential research and infrastructures enabling responsible innovations. Claire Rogel-Gaillard (INRAE) and Jacques Sainte-Marie (Inria), co-director and co-director of the program, presented the dynamics and actions undertaken, also recalling the scope of the call for projects opened in 2023 which will close on May 14, 2024.

This session also allowed four winners of the 2023 thesis and postdoc call for projects to present their projects:

  • EAGLE - Artificial intelligence for translational genetics in agronomy - Noémien Maillard (doctoral student)
  • Construction of a bioinformatics pipeline to predict the genomic shift of cultivated and wild fruit trees in response to climate change - Maxime Criado (doctoral student)
  • Development of a decision support tool to optimize grazing of spontaneous vegetation based on a functional classification of pastoral resources - Elisa Deschamps (doctoral student)
  • Modeling the dynamics of potato cyst nematode to optimize the use of trap plants - Yves Fotso Fotso (post-doctoral fellow)

Presentation and replay below:

 

 

Session 4: Renewing approaches, expertise, and training

The agroecological transition requires paradigm shifts and a facilitated alternation between theory and field practice. Moreover, the use of digital technology renews the need for training.

First, the LINDDA project leaders supported by the PEPR presented their design approaches based on participatory and collaborative methods, capable of promoting the agroecological transition by including the development of digital services adapted to needs. This intervention explained the principle of quadratic voting, put into practice in one of the afternoon workshops.

  • Designing transitions: Participatory approaches and collective decision-making - Annie Gentes (Université de Cergy), Justine Peneau (CY école de design, CY Université Cergy Paris).

Presentation and replay below : 

 

 

In a second phase, a round table dedicated to training was moderated by Mehdi Siné (Acta). It brought together participants involved in teaching in agricultural high schools (Vincent Jéhanno), training offered to farmers (Béatrice Dingli), and higher education (Véronique Bellon-Maurel):

Replay below :

 

Session 5: Innovation in the SADEA acceleration strategy

The Agroecology and Digital technology research program is one of the measures of the SADEA acceleration strategy (Sustainable agricultural systems and agricultural equipment contributing to the ecological transition) of France 2030. The development of innovative digital technologies is at the heart of this strategy.

A round table on innovation was moderated by Karine Gauche (Institut Agro Montpellier), with participants working at various scales of innovation in the field of agriculture, agroecology, and digital technologies:

Replay below:

 

Workshops

Talks between those expressing interest for the construction of consortia

26 projects, at various stages of construction, were presented in the form of two-minute pitches. This sequence was followed by informal meetings to complete the consortia with complementary expertise and skills or to identify common study areas. For the continuation of these networking initiatives, the list of pre-projects seeking complementary skills or partners is available below:

 

Designing transitions, quadratic voting: participatory approaches and collective decision-making, moderated by the LINDDA project leaders.

This workshop allowed the LINDDA project to practice quadratic voting for the first time in France. Quadratic voting is a flexible multi-option preferential voting method that allows participants to distribute a certain number of points among several proposals based on the intensity of their preferences.

Problems and solutions for data management in your projects, moderated by the BReIF project leaders

Data management is more critical than ever in research projects using and developing digital tools. This workshop synthesized and simplified the challenges of data management and the drafting of data management plans for future leaders and project managers.

Replay of the data management workshop below:

 

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