agronomy
crop
cropping systems
managing pests
pesticide use inputs
agricultural systems
challenge of agriculture
innovation plant (annual,perennial,...)
tropical and Mediterranean area
environmental footprint of farming
13 multidisciplinary research units
300 researchers and teacher-researchers
19 diploma courses
25 short training-education programmes
Download the agronomy thematic file " n° 12 (July 2010, 68 p.) 2nd Edition 2012
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Portal contact :
Chantal Salson
Agropolis International
salson@agropolis.fr
Tel. : +33 (0)4 67 04 75 49
Coordinator : Jacques Wery
(Montpellier SupAgro)
wery@supagro.inra.fr
Tel. : +33 (0)4 99 61 25 07
Agronomy Research Expertise in Montpellier and Languedoc-Roussillon (South of France)

Agronomy : crops and cropping systems
A major challenge : feeding around 9 bilion people in the future
Agronomists are facing a major challenge—to invent and promote agricultural systems capable of providing a sufficient volume of top quality products to feed around 9 billion people in the future, hus ensuring peoples’ well-being and health, while also minimizing the environmental footprint of farming.
Agronomy Research Expertise in Montpellier and Languedoc-Roussillon
13 research units
300 researchers and teacher-researchers,
100 PhD
Consult research example or projects on the following themes
The research on crops and cropping systems is a key area of excellence of the Agropolis International scientific community.
Agropolis agronomists are striving to come up with sustainable solutions tailored to a range of different biophysical and socioeconomic
situations:
- temperate, Mediterranean and tropical agriculture,
- large mechanized farms and smallholdings,
- local food production and cash and export crops,
- etc
The complementary expertise of these different research teams enables them to deal with the diverse range of complex issues and agricultural situations.
Publication date : 30/05/2010
Menu (click on the chapter in the list and then click on the title of the chapter under the image)

1. Ensuring top quality, high quantity production
to fulfil food and non-food needs of a growing population with croping systems that utilize non-renewable resources (water, energy, phosporus,etc) more efficiently »... (read more...)

2. Minimizing the impact of cropping on biogeochemical cycles
Studies carried out by teams in the region are aimed at meeting the necessary challenge of ecological intensification of agroecosystems, especially in Mediterranean and tropical condition ... (read more...)

3. Managing pests and optimizing pesticide use
It is essentIal to develop innovative, environment friendly and efficient methods to limit crop damage and subsequent harvest losses. Research is involved to aN, increasing extent in developing alternative methods to chemical control.... (read more...)

4. Preserving water resources
The Agricultural research platform in Montpellier (France) addresses all these issues through teams whose research focuses are interlinked on a contuous scale ranging from crop plant physiology to the hydrological functioning of catchments,... (read more...)

5. Developing and disseminating innovations
Many current project are aimed at developping tools to support farmers in redesigning their production systems, ... (read more...)

Research units, training, networks and more...
Research units and traning in agronomy in Montpellier and Languedoc-Roussillon area and a selection of resources... (read more...)
Current agronomy issues, approaches and complementary features
Foreword by
Jacques Wéry
UMR SystemPublication date : 30/05/2010
The following constituents account for the uniqueness of Agronomy in the scientific field:
- strong biophysical science foundations, through analysis, experimentation and modelling of the functioning of soil-plant-pest systems in crop fields, which are approached as complex systems.
- more recent, yet now well established (especially in France), foundations in research on farmers’ practices, which are considered as items subjected to socioeconomic factors that are assessed on the basis of biophysical and technical aspects of cropping..
- research firmly grounded on cropping system engineering, with its scientific interrogations focused more on problem solving than on specific processes or theories.
- this approach applies to a broad range of items ranging from plants to territories, in addition to cultivated fields and cropping systems on farms.....
(read more)
The "Laboratoires d'excellence" (LabEx) selected by the Ministry of Education and Research "Agronomy and Sustainable Development" (Agro) is led by Agropolis Fondation and focuses on Plants of agronomic interest.
Information on Agropolis website
Agropolis Fondation web site
Agropolis International managed the
secretariat of the European Society for Agronomy
(ESA) from 2010 to 2016
Information in the Agropolis International newsletter
ESA European Society for Agronomy website
Agroecology monthly cycle of seminars in Montpellier
Several joint agricultural research units in Montpellier from CIRAD, INRA, IRD and SupAgro have initiated a monthly cycle of seminars and debates, in partnership with Agropolis International, around Agroecology : ecological intensification of cropping systems.
See the page about the Agroecology monthly cycle of seminars in Montpellier, France
Update on 21/08/17
Extrait du site http://www.agropolis.fr/agronomy/