Agro-écologie

Agroecology

Towards the agroecological transition

Update : 02/08/2021

Since the 1980s, the acceleration of global trade, greater awareness of the negative effects of certain forms of agriculture on the environment and health related directly to homogenization, and the simplification of production systems based on a high use of inputs, led to a rethinking of farming systems. Maintaining or even increasing agricultural production in a sustainable way now requires the mobilization of ecological processes linked to resource dynamics, particularly through the management of local biodiversity.


These new production methods also enable the supply of ecosystem services related to water and nutrient resources, and protection against diseases and pests, extreme weather conditions, soil erosion...

This new approach to agriculture favours the coexistence of territorialized agricultural systems featuring diverse modes of functioning and structure that are adapted to local contexts. It requires the building of new knowledge originating from research and local farmers' experiences and practices, as well as greater coherence between public policies, farmer advisory systems and technological innovations.

Responses to these challenges require a multidisciplinary approach involving biology, ecology, agronomy, politics and economics that works on multiple spatial and temporal scales: from the plant to the landscape.

This requires:

  • Better understanding of the impact of natural resources on agriculture and the basis of material and energy flows
  • Designing innovative farming systems: complementarity between crops or with livestock farming...
  • Accompanying actors and professional networks in these new approaches

For Montpellier SupAgro, these issues are tackled through a multidisciplinary approach built around agricultural, ecological, human and social sciences that is part of a training-research-innovation continuum.


  • Focus on...

  • Online course

    MOOC Agroecology

    This course aims at helping you discover what agroecology is, through the complexity of the various approaches that have emerged over the years and in various regions of the world, and through the ways they can be implemented in the fields, and studied, as agricultural practices.

Contacts

L'Institut Agro Montpellier
2 place Pierre Viala
34060 Montpellier - France
Tél. : +33 (0)4 99 61 22 00 Tél. : +33 (0)4 99 61 22 00
Fax : +33 (0)4 99 61 29 00
contact@supagro.fr

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