Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:08:24 +0200https://www.cirad.fr/en/press-area/press-releases/2026/horticulture-roadmapFruit, vegetables, spices, medicinal plants, etc, etc… horticulture plays a vital role in food and health. Fruit and vegetable production has been growing for the past 50 ans years, and the horticulture sector is the world’s largest food market in value terms. However, horticulture faces a range of challenges: water management, pre- and postharvest losses, poorer soil fertility, and pesticide use. In the roadmap, CIRAD sets out its objectives for the coming ten years, to promote a sustainable value chain. The roadmap was distributed at the 10th EGEA International Conference on healthy, sustainable food systems, in Montpellier.Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:08:24 +0200https://www.cirad.fr/en/press-area/press-releases/2026/cirad-biodiversity-cop-and-climate-copBiodiversity COP17 will be held in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19 to 30 October 2026, followed by Climate COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November. Agriculture is now one of the sectors up for discussion at these international talks. It is often targeted as a cause of climate change and biodiversity loss, but it is also a victim of the changes and one of the solutions. CIRAD will again be at these major international meetings, to shed light on the discussions of the interactions between agriculture, biodiversity, climate and health, based on concrete scientific results relating to the issues under debate.Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:07:45 +0200https://www.cirad.fr/en/press-area/press-releases/2026/pastoralist-mappers-bookA new book coordinated by CIRAD scientists, entitled "Pasteurs, cartographes des parcours", has just been published by Editions Cardère. It is the fruit of collective work by 52 co-authors, and fits into the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. It looks at how livestock farmers on four continents represent their territories through participatory mapping, and pass on their know-how to contribute to sustainable land management. The book will be available at this week's 2026 Sommet de l'élevage (livestock show) 2026, from 5 to 9 October 2026, in Clermont-Ferrand, France.Tue, 06 Oct 2026 09:58:13 +0200https://www.cirad.fr/en/press-area/press-releases/2026/vitropic-40-years-of-crop-innovationVitropic is an adventure born of CIRAD's research, firmly anchored in the Hérault, France, but geared towards farming systems in tropical and Mediterranean countries. It was set up in 1986, two years after the founding of CIRAD, and this year therefore marks its 40th anniversary. Vitropic, which specialises in producing in vitro plantlets of tropical plants, was the organisation's first subsidiary, and has since become an international company. Around a hundred participants met on 2 October to celebrate at its head office in Saint-Mathieu-de-Tréviers.Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:17:56 +0200https://www.cirad.fr/en/press-area/press-releases/2026/cultivated-banana-biodiversityA study coordinated by CIRAD has revealed the previously unknown diversity of cultivated banana varieties in continental Southeast Asia. It demonstrated the totally unexpected major role of related local wild varieties in the biodiversity of today's bananas. This work shed light on the processes by which bananas became domesticated. It also traced the routes via which they spread during that domestication and revealed one that was previously unknown. The results, published in PLoS ONE, open up new prospects for developing improved banana varieties more resistant to diseases and climate change.Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:40:32 +0200