Event

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones for management of crops, livestock, fisheries, forests and other natural resource-based activities represents a new technological frontier and opens up a range of exciting opportunities. UAVs offer also opportunities for grassroots’ involvement in monitoring use of and access to the resources their livelihoods depend on.

Members of this community share their experiences in developing UAV technologies and related software applications and more importantly in making use of small UAVs to improve the management of crops, fishing grounds and other resource-based activities. Relevant events, capacity building opportunities and other resources are signalled as soon as these are known by members of the community.

Being the use of UAVs for agricultural purposes a recent phenomenon, national aviation authorities are facing new challenges linked to the use of UAVs within their skies. Hence this Community focuses also on existing and forthcoming policies, laws and regulations governing the use of UAVs.

This moderated community is jointly managed by the following organisations:
* Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA)
* International Potato Center (CIP)

Just as several African countries have leapfrogged landline-based internet and went straight to mobile phones and tablets, so too can the region make huge strides in taking advantage of revolutions in data, mechanisation, precision agriculture, irrigation, solar power and many other areas that are increasingly within the reach of small-scale farmers, traders and other key players in the agriculture value chain. African entrepreneurs are at the forefront of exciting new developments that will revolutionise agricultural production and trade on the continent.

Against this backdrop, CTA is delighted to join forces with the Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA) in its first event in Africa.

GFIA is the world’s largest showcase for sustainable agricultural solutions, bringing together the public and private sectors, and providing an unrivalled platform for showing the world that agriculture is a thriving, dynamic business sector and an attractive investment opportunity – a message that CTA has been promoting for a long time.

Teaming up with GFIA has clear benefits – the high profile of the GFIA platform and its network of sponsors and participants, and shared interests in such areas as agribusiness and ICTs. GFIA also has much to gain from CTA’s engagement, particularly through our strong links with farmers’ organisations in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, our work with women, young people and budding entrepreneurs, especially in ICTs, and our work with key policy-making forums. But more than anything, CTA will contribute to demonstrating that Africa has much to offer the rest of the world in terms of innovation in agriculture and rural development.

About the training
At the Agricultural Value Chain Finance training, participants will learn value chain concepts and how to assess risks and to identify strategic opportunities to strengthen value chains. Participants will recognize how cohesive value chains can be used to reduce risks and facilitate access to finance. They will also learn how to apply value chain financial products to meet the needs of various actors in the value chain.

The combined effects of unresolved poverty and unsustainable development together with a changing climate contribute to persistent and increasing disaster risk. Key development drivers include population growth, rapid urbanisation, increasing demands for energy and food, and increasing industrialisation. As disaster impacts are often manifested through flooding or drought, water management, in synergy with other policy areas, plays an important role in building resilience. Important milestones in global policy-making will occur in 2015, including decisions on sustainable development goals, climate change and disaster management. Strengthening and maintaining resilience to climate and disaster risks is vital for sustainable development and this must progress from concept to practice. How policy can effectively bridge this gap is an important question. Building resilience in the face of global challenges urgently needs better integration between efforts addressing development objectives, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster risk reduction and management in the Post-2015 development agenda.

WHY THIS CONFERENCE?

Building on the findings of IPCC AR5 (5th assessment report), the scientific conference “Our common future under climate change”, taking place in Paris, Unesco, in July (7-10), 2015, will present updated knowledge and address key issues concerning climate change in the broader context of global change.

The main objective of COP 21 that will take place in Paris in December 2015 is to produce a cooperation framework for a steady increase of individual and collective ambition of governments who will have presented their contributions early in 2015. The new climate governance regime is supposed to strengthen confidence, support implementation, maximize benefits of international cooperation, and bring all stakeholders to the realization that a new development model (low carbon, resilient) is actually emerging.

For science, the question has progressively shifted from consolidating the scientific basis for assessing risks and options for action, to defining the form that action has to take in order to engage in a necessary transition to low-carbon and adapted economies and societies. For stakeholders, the question has shifted from reasons for action to the form action has to take.

The scientific community, in partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, plays a major role for shaping our future under climate change, by identifying potential sustainable futures and innovations at different spatial and time scales, by designing and assessing relevant and coherent solutions, policies and measures, and therefore increasing the credibility of the Paris agreement.

The conference will be the major opportunity for scientists, stakeholders and the larger public, to take stock of existing knowledge, explore and identify innovative solutions, discuss them, and prepare for an ambitious post 2015 climate governance regime.

Mission Biodiversity: Choosing new paths for conservation
The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) is proud to team up for the first time with Agropolis international and the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) to host the 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) and the 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology (ECCB) to be held on August 2-6, 2015 in Montpellier, France.

The joint meeting brings together our international community of conservation professionals to address conservation challenges and present new findings, initiatives, methods, tools and opportunities in conservation science and practice. It’s also a marvelous opportunity to welcome scientists and conservationists from around the world to Europe. Scientists, students, managers, decision-makers, writers, and other conservation professionals across the globe are invited to participate in this event.

The City of Montpellier is located in south of France between the Mediterranean Sea and several national parks and is a hotspot of European biodiversity, at the heart of the scientific community of Montpellier and Languedoc-Roussillon region.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and everywhere in between, authors from 109 countries submitted abstracts to present their research at ICCB-ECCB 2015. Click here Find other impressive numbers from ICCB-ECCB and download the Programme-at-a-Glance (subject to change).

FSD in a nutshell

FSD is an informal interdisciplinary scientific community of practice to promote research and capacity building on farming systems design.

The core is science: “The research focus of the FSD community is the farm system level, the interactions and feedbacks at lower and higher levels of integration and the tools and methods required for understanding and implementing multi-functional farming systems expressing good trade-offs between agricultural production and ecosystems services ”.

Each symposium brings an applied focus:

FSD5 will focus on “Multi-functional farming systems in a changing world” and will be co-organized by the European Society for Agronomy (ESA) and the Agropolis scientific community.

FSD6 (forecasted in 2017 in Africa) will focus on “Sustainable intensification of agricultural systems” and will be organized by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, member of the CGIAR Consortium.

Vision and mission

Following the success of FSD4 in China, the European Society for Agronomy has been mandated to organize the next symposium (FSD5) in order to strengthen the interdisciplinary and methodological focus of the FSD initiative on methodologies for the design of productive and sustainable farming systems in a multi-scale and multi-domains approach. This means that FSD, although focused on the design of farming systems, deals with local as well as global issues as targets and constraints (food security, climate change, biodiversity, socio-economic development).

FSD5 will be an opportunity to enlarge the collaboration with major agronomy societies in the world (Europe, USA, Australia, China, South America, Africa…) as well as with scientific societies in other disciplines (IFSA, animal science, economy…) or international institutions (CGIAR…) or initiatives (Yield Gap and Water Productivity Atlas, AgMip, GFS…) with an interest in farming systems. We also aim at involving research related to policy design, incentives and investment, as well as players in the value/supply chains, to help secure positive change within farming systems.

The symposium should remain focused on methodological aspects of FSD research and their applications in agriculture, innovation and policy design. The targeted audience is maximum 400 participants with a balance between scientific presentations, workshops (with limited presentations and more time for discussion) and stimulation of international collaboration. We will look for partnership with international groups and institutions at an early stage of the preparation of the event, while encouraging also individual participation.

Engaging young scientists in FSD research and disseminating recent advances of FSD research to a broader community (including private sector and development agencies) will be a priority in FSD5. This includes the preparation of the FSD6 to be held in Africa in 2017.

The dissemination of the major scientific contributions to the symposium will be ensured with special issues of major journals (Agricultural Systems, European Journal of Agronomy….) edited before the conference. To limit the number of participants and ensure a high scientific level, the call for abstracts will be launched mid 2014 in order to select oral presentations and papers for special issues. Priority will be given to conceptual and methodological papers, case studies and experiments reports being accepted only if they illustrate/challenge these methods and concepts.

This conference will discuss how food and agricultural markets can become more stable, and what policies and regulatory frameworks should be implemented to make world food systems more efficient, sustainable and predictable. Gathering presenters from around the world, the conference discussions will help define both EU and international policies to improve food security and ensure that food and agricultural markets function benefiting world consumers and producers.