[Press Release] FROM 3 TO 6 JUNE 2024, LET’S GROW THE FUTURE! VIVESCIA’s big event for large-scale field crops and innovation (in Somme-Vesle, France)

“There are significant agronomic, climate and economic challenges ahead: adapting to climate change, decarbonisation, the sustainable management of inputs and resources – the soil, water and air – protecting biodiversity… We want to illustrate how we can rise to these challenges while providing concrete solutions to the issues farmers encounter every day,” explains VIVESCIA’s director of research, innovation and agronomy, Savine Oustrain.

It was these challenges that led VIVESCIA to organise this exceptional event devoted to cooperative farmers. Farmers, employees, manufacturers experts and scientists, customers, partners and other regional stakeholders will have four days together, centred around presentations and demonstrations that showcase 63 varieties of wheat, winter barley, winter peas, and spring barley sown last autumn, as well as presentations of agronomic methods for managing cereals. There will also be 46 varieties sown this springtime to illustrate cover crops, spring oilseeds (pea and soybean) and spring cereals (oats, durum wheat, and barley). The aim is to stimulate discussion around innovation, new technologies, our industries, and TRANSITIONS — the regenerative agriculture programme sponsored by VIVESCIA and its partners.
 

Themed workshops

• basal fertilisation, nitrogenous fertilisation
• bio-inputs (biocontrol and biostimulants)
• software solutions, drones, ultra-localised spraying
• mechanical weeding, weeds, weeding showcase 
• biodiversity
• robust rapeseed, protein crops
• soil, cover crops
• seeds
• experimental equipment
• Livestock farming/anaerobic digestion
• harvesting and on-farm storage
• personal and environmental safety

A big scientific conference

4 June 2:30-4:30 PM to discuss the latest agronomic developments

Soil, carbon, and biodiversity: possible synergies for farms

Introduction:  Christian Huyghe, scientific director for agriculture at INRAE (French National Institute for on agriculture and the environment): Stakes and challenges

• Roundtable 1: “Regenerating soil, storing organic carbon: Why and how? What objectives and what framework?”
  With Pascal BOIVIN, lecturer at Haute École Genevoise (HEPIA) 
  & VIVESCIA’s agronomy team
• Roundtable 2: “How to manage biodiversity in agri-systems and regions that cultivate large-scale field crops?”
  With Michel-Pierre Faucon, lecturer and researcher in plant ecology and agro-ecology and director of research at UniLaSalle Beauvais;
  Thomas Damestoy, lecturer and researcher in ecology and entomology at UniLaSalle Beauvais;
  By video: 
  Julien Piqueray, scientific support coordinator at NATAGRIWAL in Gembloux (Belgium) 
  & VIVESCIA’s agronomy team.
  The issue of water in our regions ? Béatrice MOREAU, VP for agriculture in the Grand Est region

Conclusion Christoph Büren, President of VIVESCIA Group

This event will also see the launch of the third edition of our wheat donation drive, in collaboration with French food banks, to fight against food insecurity. 
VIVESCIA’s chain of solidarity will be set in motion between 1 June and 30 September: farmers donating wheat; the Cooperative, Grands Moulins de Paris and Francine; and finally VIVESCIA Transport to deliver the packs of Francine flour to local food banks in the North-East of France.