The laboratory of Genetics, Horticulture and Seed Science (GBioS/ FSA), in collaboration with the Catholic University of Louvain and the University of Liège in Belgium, the Nazi Boni University in Burkina Faso and six other peasant institutions and confederations in West Africa is coordinating the AGRO ECO project. AGRO-ECO (Amplification of the agro-ecological transition for profitable and sustainable cereal production and market gardening systems in the Atacora territories of Benin and Houet in Burkina Faso) is a project which is part of a research project -action for an ecological intensification of agriculture in a context of climate change, which is funded by the Academy of Research and Higher Education (ARES). An interdisciplinary team composed of agronomists, economists, sociologists and development NGOs is mobilized for the resolution of the research questions asked at the territorial scale, concerning: the performance of agro-ecological practices, their effectiveness in a context of climate change; the brakes and levers of change for an agro-ecological transition and its amplification at the scale of a territory, ensuring the triple vocation of productivity, sustainability / resilience of agro systems and social inclusion; the development of a tool for monitoring and evaluation of transition trajectories towards agro-ecological production at a territorial level.
The AGRO-ECO project aims to contribute to the development, by the family farms of Houet (Burkina Faso) and Atacora (Benin), of an increased production, healthy and respectful of the environment, resilient to climate change, able to provide better food and nutrition security and provide an income that covers the basic needs of grassroots communities, through an agro-ecological transition. Based on the current achievements of agro-ecology, this project aims specifically to: identify, analyze the factors / conditions of a transition from rural family farming to agro-ecological practices in the Atacora and Houet territories; to experiment in a participatory way these factors and to share the best practices with the local partners for their appropriation by the producers and propose a monitoring and evaluation tool for the agro-ecological transition that will make it possible to quantify the financial and ecological profitability of the agro-ecological turn of the Atacora territories in Benin and Houet in Burkina Faso.
The launching ceremony will be held on Thursday 18th April, 2019 at the Etisalat amphitheater of the University of Abomey-Calavi.
