Agroscope, Institute for Plant Production Sciences IPS, Switzerland

Contributions of Agroscope’s research to

Agroscope’s working programme 2014–17 aims at providing specific solutions for key challenges of Swiss crop production. The competitiveness of crop production and a healthy environment are overarching objectives. The critical context exacerbated by population growth and scarcity of land reserves requires ecological intensification: increasing yields and food quality per invested resource unit while avoiding undesirable side effects on the environment. This effort shall be supported by a strengthened guidance by ecological principles and the use of new technologies. An intensive and continuous knowledge exchange between practitioners and research representatives is needed in order to facilitate that feasible problem solutions evolve based on increasingly comprehensive and precise research data.

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