[Ngo-sanrm] What A ‘CERN’ For Agricultural Science Could Look Like

Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources Management Working Group ngo-sanrm at ngocentre.org.vn
Fri Jan 8 14:46:40 ICT 2016


At least on first read, this idea of multiple, widely shared agricultural
research stations is appealing.  Agricultural research scientists could
compare their findings openly to everyone's mutual benefit.  That approach
certainly has more appeal than secret tests of GMO seeds and crops in
locked Monsanto laboratories.  That system of "company secrets" now in
place is designed only to enhance profits rather than promote health,
nutrition, or environmental sustainability.  CS

eurasia review
<http://www.eurasiareview.com/07012016-what-a-cern-for-agricultural-science-could-look-like/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29>

What A ‘CERN’ For Agricultural Science Could Look Like




*[image: Inline image 1]Testing the genetic potential of crops requires
field experimentation with a large number of genotypes, like here in the
BRIWECS project (http://www.briwecs.de/ <http://www.briwecs.de/>) on winter
wheat. Credit C. Lichthardt*

BY EURASIA REVIEW <http://www.eurasiareview.com/author/admin/> JANUARY 7,
2016

The Large Hadron Collider, a.k.a. CERN, found success in a simple idea:
Invest in a laboratory that no one institution could sustain on their own
and then make it accessible for physicists around the world. Astronomers
have done the same with telescopes, while neuroscientists are collaborating
to build brain imaging observatories. Now, in *Trends in Plant Science* on
January 5, agricultural researchers present their vision for how a similar
idea could work for them.

Rather than a single laboratory, the authors want to open a network of
research stations across Europe–from a field in Scotland to an outpost in
Sicily. Not only would this provide investigators with easy access to a
range of different soil properties, temperatures, and atmospheric
conditions to study plant/crop growth, it would allow more expensive
equipment (for example, open-field installations to create artificial
levels of carbon dioxide) to be a shared resource.

“Present field research facilities are aimed at making regional agriculture
prosperous,” said co-author Hartmut Stützel of Leibniz Universität Hannover
in Germany. “To us, it is obvious that the ‘challenges’ of the 21st
century–productivity increase, climate change, and environmental
sustainability–will require more advanced research infrastructures covering
a wider range of environments.”

Stützel and colleagues, including Nicolas Brüggemann of Forschungszentrum
Jülich in Germany and Dirk Inzé of VIB and Ghent University in Belgium, are
just at the beginning of the process of creating their network, dubbed
ECOFE (European Consortium for Open Field Experimentation). The idea was
born last February at a meeting of Science Europe and goes back to
discussions within a German Research Foundation working group starting four
years ago. Now, they are approaching European ministries to explore the
possibilities for ECOFE’s creation.

In addition to finding financial and political investment, ECOFE’s success
will hinge on whether scientists at the various institutional research
stations will be able to sacrifice a bit of their autonomy to focus on
targeted research projects, Stützel says. He likens the network to a car
sharing service, in which researchers will be giving up the autonomy and
control of their own laboratories to have access to facilities in different
cities. If ECOFE catches on, thousands of scientists could be using the
network to work together on a range of “big picture” agricultural problems.

“It will be a rather new paradigm for many traditional scientists, but I
think the communities are ready to accept this challenge and understand
that research in the 21st century requires these types of infrastructures,”
Stützel said. “We must now try to make political decision makers aware that
a speedy implementation of a network for open field experimentation is
fundamental for future agricultural research.”
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*71 Trần Quốc Toản, Hà Nội, Việt Nam*

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