In this video, I’m going on a double visit - to a typical Swiss farm (typical in that it does mixed cropping and livestock farming) as well as to the Agroscope research centre in Changins. At both, I’m meeting with researchers and farmers involved in the PestiRed project. Their shared goal is to reduce the use of pesticides by 75% on selected innovation plots over a period of six years. That’s a truly radical measure! Knowing the risk this poses, Switzerland has instituted a fund to compensate participating farmers for potential yield losses.
This video was co-produced by INRAE, France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment.
As a member of the European Research Alliance “Towards a Chemical Pesticide-free Agriculture”, Agroscope carries out the scientific monitoring for the project and provides participants with innovative agronomic and mechanical solutions along the process.
PestiRed is funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG), IP-Suisse, and the cantons of Vaud, Solothurn and Geneva. It receives scientific support from Agroscope and three partners from agricultural consulting (Proconseil, Wallierhof and Agrivulg).
This is the fifth stop on my “Field Trip”, my study tour of agricultural research across Europe.
The European Research Alliance “Towards a Chemical Pesticide-free Agriculture” was launched by INRAE, together with its German partners from JKI and the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). Under ERA’s umbrella, 34 research organisations from 20 European countries are currently working closely together with a view to pooling their strengths and facilitating the exchange of knowledge and expertise in their respective fields. One of the central aims of the alliance is to provide scientific support for an ambitious objective set by the European Commission: cutting Europe’s use of pesticides in half by 2030.
ERA’s website and its 34 members:
www.era-pesticidefree.eu/Abou...
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List of speakers in this video (in order of appearance):
- Sandie Masson: Biologist, Herbology in Field Crops, Plant Production Systems, Agroscope
- Nicolas Widmer: Head of Changins experimental farm, Agroscope
- Daniel Demiéville: Farmer, participant in the PestiRed project, Demiéville Farm, Palézieux
For comparison with the results from Daniel’s innovation plot presented in my video, here are the results from his control plot (with chemical weed control): 0.08 g of weeds against 111.7 g of crops. The weed biomass is close to zero, whereas the crop yield is in fact much higher than on the innovation plot.
However, Sandie, Daniel and I only took one frame sample from each plot. Normally, the researchers take up to eight samples for a representative average, and they repeat this operation several times during a season.
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The impact of my travels:
I’m always aiming to limit my carbon footprint. For this video, the impact created by my travels by train and public transport (source: Ademe/monimpacttransport.fr) was 4.8 kg CO2e for an itinerary of 2,021 km, which is 337.2 kg CO2e less than if I’d chosen to travel by car and 285.2 kg CO2e if I’d gone by plane.
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A series by Pierre Girard, co-produced with INRAE
Writing:
Pierre Girard
Camera and editing:
Patryk Puchalski
Graphic design:
Otto Stobbe
Translation and subtitles:
Geoffrey Schöning
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#FieldTrip_EU
Негізгі бет Innovation in Swiss Agriculture: Radical Measures
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