Consortia

Managing the health of animals, crops and soils is a key issue for the scaling-up of organic farming. The originality of the consortium lies in the unprecedented collaboration of disciplinary communities working on the integrated management of plant and animal health to explore the interfaces between these two kingdoms, as well as the link to soil health, and to catalyse the emergence of new scientific fronts.

Nutrient management is a central element in the scaling-up of organic agriculture (OA), as nutrient availability is a limiting factor for agricultural production. The expansion of OA must therefore be accompanied by structural changes to improve nutrient management. Manure and organic waste are at the heart of several major levers aimed at optimizing the circularity of these nutrients.

The hypothesis of the massive development of organic agricul-ture is renewing the stakes concerning varieties, seeds and seedlings, and calling into question multi-disciplinary and par-ticipatory research on new fronts of science.

Biodiversity provides agroecosystems with a multitude of ecological services. The effects of organic agriculture (OA) and the benefits it brings in terms of biodiversity are still poorly known. Ecological, agronomical and economic performances in OA vary widely, and few studies have focused on quantifying the synergies and antagonisms between these performances.

Whereas the demand for organic products is increasing, the development of organic pig production in Europe is slow compared to other animal and plant sectors. This project explores the hypothesis according to which pig farming could contribute to the development of organic agriculture by bolstering the optimization of processes and closing cycles at different levels of organization, from the animal to the territory. For example, the pig, in its capacity as an omnivore, is capable of recycling co-products that could not be recycled otherwise, and the fertilizing potential of its waste is of interest for soil and crop production. The obstacles to the development of organic pig farming have been well identified. On the other hand, the links between the different levels of organization require further study.

The expansion of organic agriculture (OA) may find itself confronted with a significant lack of nitrogen resources necessary to fertilize crops. This gap could be filled by increasing the area planted with nitrogen (N) fixing crops. However, the development of N-fixing crops crops is only viable if they have outlets on the market.