Partnership signed between the InVivo Group and INRAE: for innovations supporting agricultural and food transitions

Philippe Mauguin, Chair and CEO of INRAE and Thierry Blandinières, CEO of the InVivo group, signed a new partnership agreement for the next five years at the Paris International Agricultural Show. With a shared history of scientific collaborations and partnerships going back over 10 years, the research institute and the cooperative group would like to do more work together in the field of animal nutrition, human nutrition and the bio-protection of cereal crops at the farm, regional and sector levels. To support the necessary acceleration of transitions, this new partnership aims to bring about innovations that improve the economic, environmental and social performance of agricultural and food systems.

Since 2012, INRA, which became INRAE in 2020, has initiated scientific collaborations with the Soufflet Group, which InVivo acquired at the end of 2021. Such collaborations have focused on animal and human nutrition, and the protection of cereal crops. At the same time, INRAE has been partnering with InVivo since 2019, with a closer focus on the needs and systems in the field, in the agricultural and food sectors. It was therefore natural for INRAE and the InVivo Group to want to redefine the ways in which they collaborate through a new partnership agreement.

A partnership based around five priority themes 

Having already been involved in a research programme into the development of plant proteins for over four years, both partners are bringing skills and expertise to the table. These will be used, on the one hand, to identify alternative cultivation techniques to control pests which affect legume crops. On the other, the partnership will provide a better understanding of the development of aftertastes brought about by plants, as well the bitterness of flour-based products that are rich in vegetable proteins, in order to propose new products and ingredients.

Given the challenges facing the agricultural and food sectors, INRAE and InVivo now wish to intensify their combined efforts in the following areas:

1. Biocontrol and biostimulation of plants
2. Development of new technical routes to improve soil biodiversity, biological functioning and soil ecosystem services
3. "On Farm Experimentation" on digital and precision agro-ecology (data collection and artificial intelligence)
4. Regeneration of biodiversity to make agriculture more resilient and valuable in the sectors
5. Development of alternative sources of energy (methanisation, agriphotovoltaics etc.) and of the agro-ecological approach to water resources in technical processes.

By creating and implementing new projects together, the two organisations could also instigate the creation of associated partner laboratories or industrial chairs.