b'HUGE PROGRESS IS MADE IN DECISION SUPPORT TOOLS AND FARM MACHINERY, ALLOWING A BETTER USE OF PESTICIDES.in the book, the improvement of photosynthesis and the trans-formation of C3 plants in C4 plants are a long term, but certainly interesting approach.However, he says in case of very severe drought, irrigation will be necessary. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimation in 2100, 60 per cent of the French territory will suffer from agronomic drought. So, a pre-requisite will be to have water reserves available. This is not easy in France due to environmental lobbies. Contrary to Spain and Portugal where 21 per cent of the rainwater is stocked, in France it is only 2.7 per cent. Then, when you have water available, it is necessary to control irrigation. There are different types of probes that can be placed in the soil to get a picture of the water available to the plants. Constant progress is made in irrigation equipment. The generalisation of the drip irrigation should allow for additional savings. The buried drip irrigation allows a saving of water up to 30 per cent.IS THE TOOLBOX FULL OR EMPTY?In terms of French farmers having enough tools in their toolbox to continue to produce enough and high-quality food, Le Buanec states a lot of progress has been made, but most of it is incre-mental. The main revolution is the digital progress impacting all the domains. Yes, it seems that the farmers have efficient tools in their toolbox. However, the perception of new technologies by the society is not homogeneous, he says. Ethical viewpoints regarding their use will lead to completely opposed expressions and behaviour. In addition to those ethical issues, we need to take into account the financial aspects, as at the moment many farmers are in difficult situations. All farmers are aware of theBernard Le Buanecneed to adapt their practices to the new technical and societal environment. But it will take time because the modification ofIn regard to moving forward, Le Buanec says their main an agrosystem, or living organism, cannot be done without arecommendations are:minimum time of adaptation.to maintain a strong multi-disciplinary research;It should be stressed that the seed industry has a major t o put in place regulations based on a scientific advantage role to play. Indeed, we have seen that plant breeding has avs. risks analysis and not only focus on the risks;huge impact to help facing most of the challenges of the farmers, t o educate the EU citizens, and particularly the young should it be pests and diseases, weed and water stress control.ones, on agriculture and on data that have a sound scien-Seed priming and seed treatments are also important. tific and technical basis, to avoid fake news.Le Buanec says in all European countries, farmers are facing t hat governments take action to ensure that agriculture the same challenges, however, with more or less stringent regu- benefits from new technologies, particularly from the lations. This convergence is well shown, for example, with regarddevelopment of new varieties and the use of massive data, to diseases and pests, in the study Challenges facing Europeanwhile taking into account ethical questions.agriculture and possible biotechnological solutions publishedTo ensure the findings will be heard by the policy makers in in 2015 in the journal Critical Reviews in Biotechnology1. TheParis, Le Buanec has sent their book with the recommendations example of the 2019 drought, which was also severe in severalto the cabinet of the President and various ministries.We have European countries, shows the convergence of problems. So, thereceived several acknowledgements of receipt. But of course, we technical solutions developed in our book should be useful to alldont know what the final result will be.farmers and not only in Europe.1 http://www.ciopora.org/fileadmin/assets/pageDownloads/CIOPORA_Papers/CIOPORA_Position_Papers_on_PBR_2016/CIOPORA_Position_Papers_on_PBR_2016.pdf26IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'