PhD theses

Recent crises have highlighted the need to rethink agricultural and food systems to improve their sustainability.

Due to an important reliance on synthetic inputs and increasing specialization, agriculture faces major challenges in innovating and shifting production systems towards greater sustainability, to limit biodiversity loss, climate change, and human health issues. In this context, agroecology has gained prominence in scientific, economic, and social debates.

Research and innovation teams, both public and private, face major difficulties in deploying innovations in agro-ecological crop protection. The issue of deployment involves biotechnical and partnership issues, as well as public policy issues that go far beyond the scope of crop protection. Research teams would gain in efficiency in their innovation projects by integrating strategic thinking on business models at an early stage. Furthermore, most of the territories or players involved in agroecological approaches are far from R&I projects, particularly in the biocontrol innovation sector.

The cultivation of genetically resistant plants is an environmentally-friendly and effective means of controlling pathogen populations. However, pathogens can quickly overcome plant resistance.

Reports of Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt), the causal agent of stem rust, have recently multiplied in France, raising concerns about the resurgence of this disease, long considered one of the most serious for wheat.