BAGAP research unit

The BAGAP Research Unit

The joint research unit "Biodiversity, Agroecology and Landscape Planning (BAGAP)" brings together the French National Institute for Agricultural, Alimentation and Environment Research (INRAE) and 2 higher education institutes: Institut Agro (ex-Agrocampus Ouest), and ESA Angers Loire. It is located in both Brittany and Pays de la Loire regions.

The challenge of BAGAP research unit is to promote a diversity of landscape functions (agricultural production, biological control of crop pests, pollination, and maintenance of both rare and common biodiversity) by developing a landscape agroecology for action approach.

article

06 February 2023

By: UMR BAGAP

Smaller fields and diversified crops can help spontaneous plants to make a comeback, even in the middle of fields

Scientists from INRAE (Audre Alignier, Colette Bertand and Jacques Baudry fromt the BAGAP unit) and the CNRS, working with colleagues from Germany, Spain, the UK and Canada, have been looking at how crop diversity and field-border length (smaller fields have proportionately longer borders) can enrich plant species in farmland. Their study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and based on findings from 1,451 agricultural sites, shows that increasing field border lengths could be a highly effective measure to complement agri-environmental schemes, maintaining and restoring plant diversity right to the centre of fields.
people in a cereal field
Véronique Chable gave a seminar at Berkeley University in California (USA): A European network to foster organic food systems, cultivated diversity and multi-actor/transdisciplinary research. She was invited by Marianna Fenzi (post doc) and Miguel Altieri (professor) of Department of environmental science, policy and management. Marianna had initiated her PhD with our group in 2010.
Visuel DIVERSIFOOD
The DIVERSIFOOD Final Congress will be held in Rennes on 10-12 December 2018. 120 participants from Europe, the USA, and Ghana — researchers, farmers and actors for cultivating diversity and food quality — are expected. DIVERSIFOOD is an international project funded under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme. By integrating existing networks across Europe, the project will cover the whole food chain: from genetic resources to marketing, and strengthen the “food culture” to achieve local high quality food systems.

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