Coordination

Partners

Arvalis
Inrae - Montpellier
L'Institut Agro Montpellier

Objectives

France is one of the world's main durum wheat producers. However, to maintain its rank and attempt to stop the
decline in crop acreage it must tackle new challenges related to climate change, changes in regulations and farming practices, and society’s expectations as regards quality and the environment. To do this, durum wheat producers must innovate and adapt to produce more, and more efficiently, while constantly striving for sustainability.

It is in this context that the NOVADUR UMT is aiming to bring together expertise and experimental facilities in the fields of genetics, agronomics, process engineering and food sciences, in one location, to develop a genuine interdisciplinary approach in response to the sector’s questions, upstream and downstream. The objective is to offer innovative solutions in terms of agricultural practices, product quality, and to improve and redesign processes.

This UMT, located in Montpellier, started its five-year programme in January 2014.

Actions

This UMT's programme favours cross-disciplinary interfaces, in the four following ways in particular:
- genetic-agronomic interactions with an agro-ecological approach, and to define new crop management techniques;

- agronomic-process interactions, with an eco-design approach, in order to enhance and redesign processing techniques;

- integration of knowledge and development of strategic decision support tools, taking into account every link in the durum wheat supply chain;

- utilisation and dissemination of results, training.