Carrefour pea and faba bean: solutions to ensure the sustainability of these crops in the French soil
Carrefour pea and faba bean: solutions to ensure the sustainability of these crops in the French soil
Laurent Rosso, Director of Terres Inovia, opened the Pea and Faba bean meeting with these words: "The demand is there. But these crops are experiencing difficulties. The objective of this day is to understand this context and to look to the future.
Some 120 people attended the 2nd edition of the Carrefour pois et féverole, organised by Terres Inovia as part of Cap Protéines, the RDI programme of the protein plan financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty as part of France Relance, on Tuesday 22 November 2022.
The first edition, in 2019, highlighted promising markets that are insufficiently developed, dynamic varietal innovation that is still too fragile with respect to biotic and abiotic stresses, all of which are paradoxes facing the development of peas and field beans.
Three years later, marked by the Covid crisis, the war in Ukraine and the launch of a national strategy to develop French proteins, where do we stand?
The surface area continues to decline: 137,000 ha of peas and 68,000 ha of field beans in 2022, i.e. a decrease of 32% and 15% compared to 2021, the result of a rise in cereal and oilseed prices that is more pronounced than that of peas and field beans and unsatisfactory yields in 2021. Yet market demand is growing. The economic and environmental interest of pea and faba bean is more relevant than ever in a context of very volatile nitrogen prices and climatic changes that we can now all measure.
The speakers presented the latest advances in R&D in genetics, agronomy and crop protection. These results are intended to contribute to the collective reflection on the work to be done to develop pea and faba bean in French crop rotation, in a spirit of open and frank dialogue between all the players.
The testimonies of Fabrice Moulard, a farmer in the Eure region, and Jean-François Herbommez, a pea breeder at KWS, underlined the need to revisit cultivation techniques, and in particular the planting of crops, in order to make the most of the varietal progress that has accelerated in recent years and to recover productivity. Resources should be allocated in the framework of the 2030 France Plan to work on this.
Gilles Robillard, President of Terres Inovia, concluded, "The pea and faba bean sectors need long-term investments, whether in seed research or in agronomic support. We are working to ensure that this is put in place and, in the meantime, our community remains mobilised to develop projects on our species.
Contact : Véronique Biarnès, v.biarnes@terresinovia.fr
