The FARM Foundation is involved and co-finances the PretAg project
On November 25, the FARM Foundation and Agropolis Foundation joined the PretAg (Pesticide Reduction for Tropical Agriculture) initiative, which aims to document, test, and implement strategies to reduce pesticide use in the South. Coordinated by the CIRAD, this initiative brings together 14 research units from Montpellier and their partners from the South.
The steady increase in pesticide use in tropical agriculture since the 2000s has had a significant impact on human health, biodiversity, and ecosystem health. Faced with these challenges, Agropolis Foundation, the FARM Foundation, and CIRAD—through several joint research units involving the IRD, the Institut Agro, the University of Montpellier, the CNRS, and INRAe—are proud to announce the launch of the PretAg initiative aimed at documenting, testing and implementing strategies for reducing pesticide use in the South. This initiative is carried out in collaboration with research communities from Africa, Latin America and Asia.
Beyond financial support, the FARM Foundation wanted to get involved in the project by contributing to the mobilization of agents of change. "As part of the initiative, we are committed to consulting representatives from upstream and downstream sectors, providers of innovative solutions from the private sector and donors, to inform the advocacy that will result from our work," explains Catherine Migault, director of the foundation.
Based on studies in five key sectors (peri-urban market gardening in West Africa, cocoa cultivation in West Africa, rice cultivation in Southeast Asia, coffee cultivation in Latin America and Asia, dessert banana production in Africa and the Antilles), this first phase of the PretAg initiative – lasting two years – aims to provide a quantitative and qualitative overview of pesticide use, an analysis of producers' constraints and the potential for reduction, as well as the associated barriers and levers.
PretAg aims to co-construct in the short term, with the various private and public actors, an international alliance combining the technical and financial trajectories of an innovation process for the effective reduction of pesticide use.
