DiVicia, a PRIMA project to restore the agro-diversity of faba beans and vetches in Mediterranean cereal agroecosystems
https://divicia-project.org/ DiVicia will work toward the design of sustainable, efficient and resilient biodiversity-based cereal-legume cropping systems adapted to the future challenges and constraints of Mediterranean areas with added values. This will promote the ecological intensification of production systems through the management of the functional roles of biodiversity. Using the contrasting Vicia species faba bean and common vetch as study cases, DiVicia project aims to exploit key agro-ecological functions of legumes to restore agrobiodiversity and improve sustainability and resilience of Mediterranean cereal cropping systems. The identification of a wide range of promising landraces and new productive drought-adapted genotypes of a range of Vicia species will help to implement best practices of rotations, intercropping and mix-cropping. The project consortium will make use of its multidisciplinary expertise together with stakeholders, integrating tacit and scientific knowledge to propose innovative agronomic practices, new local and drought-adapted germplasms, and tools to support farmers in such transition. This will help to define strategies to better adapt the systems to the changing context. Sustainability assessments and soil diagnoses will be performed on farm with a participatory approach. New designs and germplasms will be tested in field experiments to identify key generic rules on the functioning of biodiversity-based systems. Selection and breeding of productive drought adapted crops will increase genetic diversity and advance the contribution of Vicia sp. to multiple ecosystem services. Tools will also be built up for prediction of soil quality and fertility, and bioeconomic analyze at farm scale. In conclusion, this program aims to develop biodiversity-based cropping systems able to cope with limited resources and environmental constrains while improving soil quality, enhancing food quality and production stability over time, and increase farmers’ income.
8 countries – 13 partners
