Sustainable Mulches for Aphid-Free Environment – SMAFE

By 2030, the world's population is expected to reach around 9 billion required to devise new advances in areas such as energy, transport and mainly food production. In fact, in line with the ethical demands of our times, the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN) as well as the European Green Agenda push governments, scholars and industries to develop more sustainable agriculture. To achieve this, we must restore natural habitats through better utilization of agricultural land, protect soil against erosion by ensuring a sufficient supply of nutrients for crops and promote biodiversity. However, the extensive use of broad-spectrum synthetic compounds represented by pesticides, fungicides and herbicides led to a dramatic extinction of many species over the last decades. Greater sustainability can be reached by the use of natural substances of plants. Thus, the first objective of the SMAFE project is to use these compounds as repellent agents to reduce the impact of pests, especially Aphids on specific crops while protecting other beneficial insects. Polymers have many applications in agriculture such as soil mulching, greenhouse covers, silage bags, insect nets, irrigation systems, etc. The low-cost processing of a large number of polymers with diverse functionalities allows their use for protecting crops from animals and bad weather, as well as improving crop growth under unfavourable conditions by optimizing water and nutrient use, increasing yields or shortening seasons. However, conventional petroleum-based plastics represent a symbol of mass consumption, and large amounts of waste polluting the environment and contributing to the climate crisis. Thus, the development of new biodegradable and biosourced mulches for agroecosystem sustainability will be the second aim of the SMAFE project. By combining the expertise of IMP and BF2I labs, an original route to develop a new biodegradable polymers containing Repellent Agents will be developed.