Supporting farmers in their change to more sustainable practices requires dealing with the singularity of their situations. Taking advantage of local pedoclimatic and socioeconomic potential to build adapted solutions challenges the way agricultural advice is provided. Recent research on transition management shows that this requires the inclusion of change in the individual experience of farmers and the support of peer groups. The question that arises is how to articulate these individual and collective dimensions. In particular, how to ensure the groups are relevant and durable by readjusting their purposes to match the progress of the transition experienced by the farmers on their farms? We created a 5-step approach based on the concepts of “pragmatic inquiry” and “community of practice” to (1) clarify changes on their farms with the farmers, (2) map the changes, (3) record their surprises, and question (4) their collective action and (5) organisation. Its originality is to enable the reorientation of individual projects to be matched with that of the collective actions promoted by the agro-ecological transition. We tested this approach in 5 1-day workshops with 5 farmer groups who breed their own maize. Qualitative analyses of the materials produced and the workshop discussions revealed (1) the changes implemented by the farmers and what they valued, (2) the transition and the major transformations underway, (3) the way in which a collective redefines itself in this changing environment, and (4) the singular identity of each collective. Sharing these results between groups led to (1) a shift in the farmer’s perception of maize from a symbol of intensive agriculture to an important element in the diversification of farming systems, and (2) the realisation that group facilitation should go beyond breeding techniques, be more systemic, and reflect on the renewal of collective action and group identity.

Vinegar can be used for seed treatment against common bunt in wheat. The effect and side effect depend on duration of the treatment rather than the dose.

The scientific roots of organic systems are anchored in the four principles of IFOAM – Organics International: ecology, health, fairness, and care. Scientific skills are needed for the continuous improvement of organic food, systems, and culture. The Forum invited researchers to share their work in the following five themes, with a special focus on interdisciplinary research.

LIVESEED is a Horizon 2020 project applying interdisciplinary and multi-actor approaches aiming to transform the organic seed and plant breeding sector. The main goal is to reach 100% organic seed of cultivars suited for organic agriculture in order to improve competitiveness and integrity of organic production. LIVESEED covers the five main crop categories: legumes, vegetables, fruit trees, cereals and fodder crops, considering diverse cropping systems across Europe including mixed cropping and agroforestry. LIVESEED explored legal, technical, scientific, and socio-economic aspects that impact the use of organic seed from breeding to seed availability. LIVESEED developed policy recommendations on the implementation of the rules for organic seed in the EU organic regulation and an EU wide router database for organic seed. Innovative concepts for seed health and systems-based breeding have been developed as well as several breeding and selection tools for improved resilience. Innovative governance models for assessing suitability of homogeneous and heterogeneous cultivars for organic agriculture are designed and recommendations made to ease the official release of organic bred varieties. Economic business models for the whole seed supply chain including financing of organic breeding allowing simulation of interventions are under development. Science based policy recommendation of LIVESEED can have an immediate impact on the delegated and implementing act of the new organic EU regulation promoting organic seed and plant breeding.

LIVESEED aims to identify, develop and promote smart practices and teaching materials on organic seed multiplication and production. It places a strong focus on improving practitioners’ access to existing technical information and to make it available online in different languages.

The new Organic Regulation EU 848/2018 recognises the priority of developing cultivars suitable to organic agriculture. When the use of external inputs (mineral fertilisers,herbicides and pesticides) that can mitigate environmental stressors and buffer environmental variation is excluded or limited, cultivar choice is the key crop-specific decision organic farmers can make. Cultivar adaptation to farming systems, the environment and the market in which farmers operate can only be ensured by an optimal information flow about cultivars’ performance under organic conditions. Such flow of information can be enabled, in turn, by appropriate cultivar evaluation. In conventional agriculture,post-registration cultivar evaluation is mainly performed on controlled experimental sites and its results are used by extension services to provide variety recommendations for farmers. This system requires a great investment in terms of logistics and infrastructure, and is extremely labour and cost intensive, while providing information of limited relevance to organic farmers. Since organic agriculture only represents a fraction of the whole agricultural sector, few cultivar evaluation programmes dedicated to organic agriculture exist in Europe; most of these follow the same architecture used in conventional systems, and are limited to few major crops. Therefore, they are far from responding to the complex information needs required by the highly diverse organic systems. To overcome this lock-in, radical innovation pathways are needed, to explore innovative models for cultivar evaluation under Organic Agriculture.

This booklet is meant to inspire farmers, breeders and seed producers to devote resources to producing organic seed. It illustrates eight success stories from five European countries. Case studies cover the whole spectrum of farming from vegetable to fruit, cereal to potato and represent various stages of seed breeding, production and multiplication as well as a range of business set-ups: from individual farms to private seed companies, through non-profit organisations and cooperatives.

This report describes the state of the art and research results on the production of heathy organic seeds, as performed in the frame of the LIVESEED project, with support from the European Horizon 2020 program. Organic seed health is based on a multitude of factors and cannot simply be managed through one-size-fits-all solutions such as curative seed treatments. Use of seeds produced under organic conditions can also have benefits, as organic soils may have a richer and more diverse microbiome and part of this microbiome enters the seed during development. Although much more research is needed, there are indications that certain microorganisms in this seed microbiome play a role in tolerance of the emerging seedling toward biotic and abiotic stress in the field. In the frame of the LIVESEED project, case studies have been performed on some of these issues, with the aim of providing background information and tools to tackle them.

Agroecology calls for a global approach, integrating scientific, practical, and advocacy dimensions, to redesign agricultural systems based on ecological and socio-cultural processes and emphasizing biodiversity. This review is grounded on the results of DIVERSIFOOD, a European H2020 multi-actor research project, and explores the concept of cultivated diversity using various dimensions relevant to foster sustainable organic food systems and agro-ecological transition. From the evaluation of underutilized genetic resources and forgotten crops, DIVERSIFOOD has proposed plant breeding strategies, on-farm experimentation, and statistical tools to create new populations, landraces, and organic cultivars with intra-varietal diversity. The added value of Community Seed Banks and forms of collective seed management in Europe have been described in terms of goals and activities, and their value for improving seed regulations, treaties, and genetic resources management is discussed. In the context of the current agro-food system characterized by standardization, DIVERSIFOOD raised awareness of qualities of ‘biodiverse food systems’ in which all actors have a role to play. It highlighted the critical capacity to preserve a diversity of cultural values embodied in ‘biodiverse products’, thereby involving consumers in collective strategies for reviving diversity, and empowering all actors of organic food systems to really and efficiently implement research within their farms and networks.

European project on improving the competitiveness of organic agriculture by boosting organic seed and plant breeding across Europe (2017 – 2021)

This booklet addresses all the areas where intervention is needed to support innovation in production and adoption of organic seed, namely: - policy and regulation; - cultivar testing and seed multiplication; - innovative breeding strategies; - socio economic aspects related to seed production. The aim of this document is to highlight any challenges to reaching 100% use of organic cultivars and to offer advice on how to address them.

This technical booklet provides methodologies and guidance to implement sensory evaluations for organoleptic quality assessment in multi-actors projects for organic agriculture. It presents five detailed tests that can be used in sensory evaluation, methodologies on how to prepare the samples and a glossary. This booklet has been developed under Solibam project and updated during Diversifood project. This tool provides five detailed tests that can be used in sensory evaluation, methodologies on how to prepare the samples and a glossary.

Organic and low-input food systems are emerging worldwide in answer to the sustainability crisis of the conventional agri-food sector. “Alternative” systems are based on local, decentralized approaches to production and processing, regarding quality and health, and short supply-chains for products with strong local identities. Diversity is deeply embedded in these food systems, from the agrobiodiversity grown in farmers’ fields, which improves resilience and adaptation, to diverse approaches, contexts and actors in food manufacturing and marketing. Diversity thus becomes a cross-sectoral issue which acknowledges consumers’ demand for healthy products. In the framework of the European project “CERERE, CEreal REnaissance in Rural Europe: embedding diversity in organic and low-input food systems”, the paper aims at reviewing recent research on alternative and sustainable food systems by adopting an innovative and participatory multi-actor approach; this has involved ten practitioners and twenty-two researchers from across Europe and a variety of technical backgrounds in the paper and analysis stages. The participatory approach is the main innovation and distinctive feature of this literature review. Partners selected indeed what they perceived as most relevant in order to facilitate a transition towards more sustainable and diversity based cereal systems and food chains. This includes issues related to alternative food networks, formal and informal institutional settings, grass root initiatives, consumer involvement and, finally, knowledge exchange and sustainability. The review provides an overview of recent research that is relevant to CERERE partners as well as to anyone interested in alternative and sustainable food systems. The main objective of this paper was indeed to present a narrative of studies, which can form the foundation for future applied research to promote alternative methods of cereal production in Europe.

Malgre un fort potentiel tant en production qu’en recherche, la France ne s’est jusque-ici pas suffisamment impliquee a la hauteur des enjeux dans des appels a projets pour le developpement de l’agriculture biologique. Ceci peut etre attribue a un manque de mobilisation collective et a la petite taille ou a la dispersion des equipes de recherche impliquees en bio. Ce document vise a compenser cette lacune, en s’inspirant de la demarche des plateformes technologiques europeennes. Ce programme-cadre est un panorama des besoins de recherche identifies par les acteurs francais pour appuyer le developpement de l’agriculture biologique. Il vise d’une part a suggerer des themes aux financeurs qui elaborent des appels a projets tant en France qu’au niveau europeen et d’autre part a inspirer les equipes de chercheurs susceptibles d’y contribuer. Il resulte d’un travail collaboratif conduit pendant une annee et demie par une equipe de volontaires et nourri par plusieurs consultations avec des acteurs de la bio. Dans une premiere partie, un cadre conceptuel est presente brievement. Conformement a l’ambition transformatrice de son projet fondateur, l’agriculture biologique est ici representee en tant que systeme alimentaire bio. Ce projet recouvre plusieurs dimensions : productives, alimentaires et sanitaires, environnementales, sociales, economiques, politiques, institutionnelles. Ces multiples dimensions sont inscrites dans diverses politiques publiques, dont, au premier chef, la reglementation europeenne. Mais leur articulation comme leur mise en œuvre sont parfois problematiques, en particulier du fait de l’inadequation des modes d’evaluation des performances multiples et d’une focalisation sur des besoins immediats, au detriment d’une vision a plus long terme privilegiant une re-conception de systemes ou d’arbitrages dans des trajectoires de transition. L’approche systemique est un des atouts qui font de la bio un objet de recherche particulierement interessant en tant que prototype de systeme alimentaire durable.

The over-simplification of modern intensive agro-ecosystems in terms of cultivated biodiversity had dramatically increased their vulnerability to stresses and perturbations. In order to create and use a higher specific and genetic diversity several community management seed systems (or “Seed Houses”) are being currently set up in France. In this country where most farmers are used to buying commercial seeds, these initiatives are considered innovative. They also raise several issues such as: how to obtain, improve and conserve adapted plant genetic resources? How farmers’ communities can organise themselves to produce and exchange seeds amongst their members? Which procedures, which quality thresholds, which skills and which tools must be developed? With the aim to finding solutions the participatory research project entitled “ProABiodiv” involving farmers, extension services and researchers in genetics, sociology and economy was set up in 2011 on forage crops. It is a good illustration of how we can bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and the know-how of practitioners. Solutions must be locally developed as they are connected to a specific background, producing outputs that guide practitioners in raising the relevant questions rather than providing recipes.

All organic agricultural systems suffer from a lack of plant cultivars adapted to organic production. Within the framework of the European project SOLIBAM (Strategies for Organic and Low Input Breeding and Management) a study was undertaken to determine which cultivars farmers grow, why they grow them, and the expectations in plant breeding of organic stakeholders.A comprehensive range of investigations carried out between 2010 and 2012 provided information on the state of organic seed in France. Results fit with the hypothesis that the market is a significant factor influencing the choice of seeds and cultivars (local cultivars, landraces, modern cultivars). Expectations and practices of producers selling on a local market (i.e., direct sale) differ radically from those of producers selling to long food supply chains.This study shows that the availability and use of organic seeds have significantly improved over the last three years. A vast majority of organic producers willingly use organic seeds, with, on average, 45-70% (cereals) and 75%-100% (vegetables) of organic seeds being planted on farms. However, the total number of derogations remains quite high: there is still space for improvement in organic seed use and supply in France. Several limiting factors and levers were identified during the study, as well as farmers' expectations for the future on horticultural crops. The case study on tomatoes states the differences between producers selling on a local market and those of producers selling in long food supply chains regarding their practices (open field vs greenhouses) and the kind of cultivar they use or wish to have.

The poster describes Solibam work on tomatoes, in France and Italy, such as the breeding schemes and the various connections between WPs. In 2010 and 2011, the main activity in WP3 consists on creating populations (genetically diverse germplasm) on two kinds of tomatoes: “Coeur de boeuf” type and “Marmande” type. These populations are generated through several targeted crosses between several landraces collected in France and Italy (in situ and ex situ collections). In 2013 and 2014, there will be two main breeding programmes: one in WP5 by seed companies (Gautier Semences and Arcoiris), on other in WP6 (Participatory Plant Breeding). In the end of the programme, there will be a comparison of these two breeding approches, including molecular analyses (WP2). All along the process, from 2011 to 2014 (and after), agronomic, organoleptic and nutritional tests are implemented to manage and guide the selection.

Farm days are designed to be an innovative tool for the dissemination of the project outcomes among farmer’s communities and other stakeholders. The poster describes and illustrates this concept of “farm days”. Solibam partners are in charge of the organisation and implementation of Farm days in their country. These are organised each year, to enable breeders, farmers, adisors and researchers to share their skills, information, and knowledge. It also facilitates information flow among stakeholders. They are also often an opportunity 1) to involve participants in the discussion of plant breeding traits or in organoleptic tests 2) to illustrate field trials or participatory plant breeding. Farm days are also a way to communicate on the Solibam project, to distribute booklets and other dissemination tools. In addition, Farm days stand as a space for discussion of the project results and related topics with farmers.