Due to a growing world population and changing consumption patterns, demand for animal products is expected to increase. Ruminant-based systems have the potential advantage of using resources non edible by humans and converting these into high quality human food. However, the emergence of intensive ruminant production systems, relying on increasing use of concentrate feeds, with food value, and the related increase in land abandonment in traditional grassland regions, has increased scrutiny in respect of the sustainability of EU livestock productions. Moreover the consumers’ point of view, the social acceptability of cattle products is being questioned with regards to food quality and safety, animal welfare and the competition between feed and food. To face these drawbacks, we hypothesize that cattle farming systems which rely mainly on grasslands and agro-industrial resources non-edible by humans are more or can be designed to be more sustainable than specialized systems which use feedstuffs that could also be directly used as food or that was produced at the detriment of food production. In addition such systems would greatly contribute to circular economy. Our measure of sustainability includes, environmental and social dimensions as well as economic perspectives taking into account the services delivered by these systems. Our proposal focuses on beef production systems as they are increasingly questioned by society. To test this, actual and potential performances of systems representative of Europe will be compared, mobilizing multidisciplinary and multi-actors approaches to co-define 1-beef system types, 2-the set of sustainability indicators to be mobilized, 3-potential scenarios of evolution for more sustainable systems. These scenarios will be evaluated and, furthermore, suitable incentive measures to enhance their implementation will be tested and, when relevant, proposed. The dissemination of results will be facilitated throughout this bottom-up approach.

In Europe, fruit production is essential as a supplier of food that is beneficial to public health and to provide value and jobs. It may also play an important role in agroecology transition. But currently, fruit production is very dependent on the use of phytosanitary products and vulnerable to climatic change (CC). Most cultivated varieties are susceptible to diseases and pests, and CC already has a significant impact on the phenology and regularity of production of important fruit species such as apple, peach and apricot. Emerging major agronomic issues for the fruit sector are thus related to input reduction and resilience to CC. The challenge is therefore to accelerate the transition to low-input, sustainable fruit production systems based on adapted and resilient plant material. In this context, the proposed project aims at organizing a consortium for preparing the submission to H2020 call SFS28B “Adding value to genetic resources”, and more specifically building a proposition for adding value to European Rosaceae fruit tree genetic resources (GR). An enormous reservoir of GR is available in cultivated species and wild relatives of fruit species. Those GR are scattered over Europe in various germplasm banks and numerous amatory associations. This reservoir is only scarcely used even though the scattering of germplasm collections over Europe can be seen as an opportunity to monitor and characterize accessions adaptation in diverse and changing environments. Indeed, fruit species have to face multiple sources of stress generated by CC and biotic constraints due to the duration of their cultivated life span (usually a few decades). However, a better use of RG would require that homogeneous and accurate phenotyping and genotyping processes are developed and shared by conservators, curators, geneticists, breeders, nonprofessional organizations and growers. This project will be based on a consortium involved in conservation and characterization of GR throughout Europe that aims at improving their harmonization, exploration and use in different environment, cultivation systems and usages. For this, the project will pay attention to the diversity of institutions to associate to the initial consortium and to demonstration and dissemination activities. By gathering academic skills, private breeders and companies and public associations, the consortium will ambition breakthrough in the characterization of new traits related to biotic and abiotic constraints and adaptation to diverse environments. The project will include actions to: - Characterize existing germplasm collections, as well as wild related germplasm, for new traits, making use of new methodologies, including “omis” and modelling, that will be shared among partners. - Enrich collections of domesticated material with wild related species, when necessary. - Enrich, give access to and share existing and new phenotypic, genotypic and ‘omics’ information collected during the project, through existing databases organized under SFS28-A. - Implement innovative approaches to unravel genes/QTLs for characters of interest in Rosaceeae fruit species, integrate omics-derived and new biotechnology information. - Address methodological questions related to trait combination and introgression of new desirable traits revealed in collections or in the wild compartment into elite material, in accordance with user’s needs. - Generate pre-breeding materials These actions are expected to reinforce and galvanize European network involved in Rosaceae species GR for adding value to and increasing the utilization of the preserved germplasm.