Agrinatura General Assembly and Conference 2025

21 - 22 May 2025. University of Ghent, Belgium. Agrinatura General Assembly and Conference 2025

• Agrinatura organizes every year it’s General Assembly hosted by the member of each institution to discuss further activities, new projects, further initiatives, incorporation of new members, presentation of working groups in a way to continue working in the achievement of Agrinatura goals for sustainable agriculture.
• The first and second day were a workshop on topics related to research in agriculture development under the theme: Advancing biobased economy: building sustainable value chains for agri-food systems in the global south
• The third day was as closed meeting and related to organizational matters.

Extracts of the agenda:

1. 
   Keynote 1: Evaluating policies to reverse tropical deforestation - Eric Lambin (Stanford University and UCLouvain)
2. Keynote 2: EU support to biodiversity in Central Africa: lessons from the field in building the current Landscape Programme in DR Congo in the framework of the “Global Gateway” Filippo Saracco (EU delegation DR Congo)
3. Keynote 3: Leveraging Corporate Social Responsibility: Private Sector Strategies, Regulatory Impact, and Building Sustainable Agri-Food Value Chains in the Global South - Raphael Audoin Rouzeau (Puratos)
4. Keynote 4: Breaking barriers for resilient agrifood systems through transformative education. - Dr Florence Nakayiwa (RUFORUM)
   

Picture: PhD researcher Mulubrhan Bayissa Tullu presented a poster at the 4th Agrinatura Conference 2025

Sylvain Perret appointed Agrinatura Director

After 10 years as Director of CIRAD's Environments and Societies Department, Sylvain Perret has just
been appointed Director of the European Agrinatura consortium. He joins Inese Rozensteine, Head of CIRAD's Europe Office, on the network's Board of Directors. This clearly recognizes CIRAD's determining role in the European research ecosystem.

Agrinatura recently drafted its strategy for 2030, it will be up to me to roll it out, starting with continuing the already highly efficient management of the major projects administered by the association. One other major aspect will be building and organizing spaces for dialogue with European Commission policymaking and decision-making bodies. First of all, with the Directorate general for International Partnerships (INTPA), a historic, solid partner with high expectations in this respect, but also with other directorates such as that for research and innovation. This role in interfacing science and policy will feed the way we conduct our projects. The idea is to encourage the policy sphere to become involved in research activities as early as possible, to help promote their results in terms of recommendations to support policy decisions and action. Sylvain Perret