Rapport final de SOLIBAM 2010-2014 - Strategies for organic and low-input integrated breeding and management

Based on the hypothesis of “diversity”, SOLIBAM has designed and tested innovative strategies to develop specific and novel breeding approaches integrated with management practices to improve the performance, quality, sustainability and stability of crops adapted to organic and low-input systems. The SOLIBAM project has been carried out by 23 partners, representing 12 countries in Europe and Africa, within the context of a lack of adapted varieties specifically for organic and low input agriculture. A fundamental characteristic of these farming approaches is a wide range of variability within the farming system, combined with a wide range of environmental variation. Having a choice of adapted plants and practices is the only means to build a sustainable farmingsystem which is characterized by a complexity of interactions. As a basis the team - representing several kinds of actors, researchers, seed companies, farmer’s organisations and also involving end-users and consumers - therefore developed tools and methodologies to better understand and manage complexity. From more than 50 field experiments and case studies in 4 countries and 8 major crop models (durum and soft wheat, barley, maize, faba beans, bean, tomato and broccoli), combined with several competencies including genetics, plant breeding, agronomy, ecology, food science, statistics, sociology and economics, SOLIBAM has established 10 major concepts for cultivating diversity (resilience, robustness, functional biodiversity, yield stability, adaptability, intercropping, sustainability, evolutionary processes, organoleptic quality, participatory research), building strongtransdisciplinarity in a dynamic process of knowledge integration. Within SOLIBAM, plant diversity was observed, analysed, developed and enhanced by the creation of new populations and varieties exploited for novel crop management practices. Genetic structure, observed by relevant markers, of the different types of varieties and populations studied strongly reflected the selection / conservation history of the populations showing, in many cases, significant and rapid differentiation due to cultivation in contrasting agro-climatic conditions and to farmers’ breeding practices or breeding. In addition to activities devoted to field and crop studies, the overallfarm system has been assessed at three system levels: the cropping system, the farm and the chain from breeder to farmer (plant breeding and legal aspects) and to consumer (the food supply system). There was a specific focus on resource use efficiency, environmental impacts and socio-economic assessments in case studies from the UK, France, Italy and Portugal. Part of SOLIBAMs research was participatory in nature, based on the experience and skills of a number of partners to improve knowledge sharing and to involve several kinds of actor and their activities. In a number of cases, the transdisciplinarity within SOLIBAM has allowed links to bemade between scientific knowledge and practitioner ‘know-how’ in complementary ways. SOLIBAM has developed various agro-ecological innovations which are at the core of its strategies: - new approaches to plant breeding and development which simultaneously consider diversity and quality, performance and stability, co-breeding for intercropping, or crop-pollinator interactions; - new food products with improved quality properties;- new tools for participatory plant breeding and management (PPBM) in which farmers, researchers and other stakeholders together designed new breeding methods for decentralized programmes, tools for resource and trial management, and for the statistical analysis of results, along with integrating methodologies to better select for flavoursome products; - social innovation and collective action for decentralised and participatory research; - new modelling tools to better understand and assess resilience, viability and sustainability of farms. In conclusion, SOLIBAM identified three key words - Diversity, Participatory Innovation and Locality/Terroir - that should be at the cornerstone of future agricultural propositions for policy makers so as to adapt the seed system, knowledge system and food system to accommodate diverse cultivated crops.