Agronomic, technological, and organizational innovations in the service of the sustainability of the durum wheat chain. – Dur-Dur

The project is based on the know-how, skills, technical means, expertise, and complementarity of 6 scientific partners (IATE, AGIR, ARVALIS, GENIAL, PIHM, SMART), 2 technical partners (EVEA and OptoMachines), and 2 partners representing the professional domain (CFSI and SIFPAF). All the actors of the durum wheat agrofood chain (cooperatives, industrialists, GIE, and plateforme blé dur) are integrated into the project via an advisory board, which will play a role of interface and transfer.
Planned over 4 years, this multifactorial approach aims at integrate the 3 dimensions of the sustainability (environmental, economic, and social), at 4 levels of investigation: (task 1) agronomy, for the production of grains of high quality based on innovative technical ways to reduce the dependence to chemical inputs (nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides) via experiments in silico and in situ; (task 2) technology, with the adaptation of the transformation processes to the protein content and quality of wheat; (task 3) process engineering, for the energetic re-design of equipments ; (task 4) economy, to characterize the strategies of innovation and analyze the behavior of the actors of the agrofood chain and propose actions of coordination. A task of integration by multi-criteria analyses and ACV has the aim of identifying the efficient levers to improve and guarantee the sustainability of the durum wheat agrofood chain (task 5).

The ambitions of the Dur-Dur project are fully integrated into the missions and the stakes of the durum wheat professional organizations and the «RTE blé dur plateform«. The quantitative objectives aimed by the Dur-Dur project are defined at three levels.
(i) Identification and/or building of specific indicators of impacts of sustainability, at the different levels of the durum wheat chain: farmers (quantity of the nitrogen inputs, water consumption, production costs, etc.), processing (energy consumptions by the processes, process costs, etc.), and chains (organizational models for the management of the «innovations«, social demand, etc.).
(ii) Building of confrontation tools of the indicators of sustainability impact, to elaborate strategies of multi-criteria evaluation, by integrating the different levels of the durum wheat chain (e.g. by typical surrounding areas of environmental integrated life cycle analysis) for equivalent uses (e.g. «for one portion of food based on durum wheat ready to be eaten«).
(iii) The works realized in the Dur-Dur project will allow identifying means to improve and strengthen the sustainability of the durum wheat chain.
The strong implication of all the economic and scientific partners in the building of Dur-Dur projects guarantees the implementation of actions for transfer of the project results. It still remains difficult to exactly define the quantitative results, in particular to be able to imagine by anticipating the conclusions of multi-criteria analyses, which will be built from all the indicators of impact obtained in each task. The ambitions of the Dur-Dur project are multiple:
- Reduction of the amounts of nitrogen fertilizer = -20% in comparison to current regional references.
- Reduction of the amount of pesticides at the scale of the rotation (in comparison to regional references of 2008, National French Plan Ecophyto 2018) = -50%.
- Reduction of the energy consumptions by the processes = -20%.

The ambitions of the Dur-Dur project also aim at generating scientific and technical knowledge to promote innovation within durum wheat chain.
- Agronomic innovation: management of cultures by the control of the nitrogen inputs and pesticides.
- Product innovation: grains with optimized protein potential (quantity and quality of proteins).
- Process innovation processes: technological ways adapted to the protein potential of grains.
- Equipments innovation: specifications for the re-design of equipments.
- Chain innovation: scenarios of organization of the chains for the valuation of the innovations.
All these actions will contribute to maintain the economic competitiveness of the French durum wheat chain in the current sustainability context.

The scientific communication of the results is a major objective. The exploitation of the original results of the project is expected in a classic way, with patents (when possible), publications in international scientific journal and scientific communications (orals and posters) in international congresses.
The partners will contribute put to technical communication, to widen the scope of broadcasting of the results and touch a wide panel of industries, by technical articles (in non-specialized or specific technical journals), and communications directly to industries in technical symposiums. This approach is built on the strong and completely operational links that already exist between the scientific partners and the industrial actors involved in cereal science and food processing. The transfer of knowledge towards the industries that use durum wheat will be considered by a double approach. All the actors of the durum wheat agrofood chain (cooperatives, industrialists, GIE, and plateform blé dur) are integrated into the project via an advisory board, which will play a role of interface and transfer. Organization of a final Workshop, opened to the scientists and to the industries, at the end of the project, to present and discuss all the results that will be generated by the project. The organization and animation of the final workshop will be ensured by the scientific partners of the project.

To face the current issues (climate change, prices volatility, regulation changes, and environmental impact decrease), the sustainability of the French durum wheat agrofood chain lies on its capacities of organization, innovation and adaptation. The Dur-Dur project suggests developing a systematic approach to investigate the questions related to the management of the nitrogen, energy and contaminants, to guarantee a global quality of products throughout the production and the transformation chain. Planned over 4 years, this multifactorial approach aims at integrate the 3 dimensions of the durability (environmental, economic, and social), at 4 levels of investigation: (task 1) agronomy, for the production of grains of high quality based on innovative technical ways to reduce the dependence to chemical inputs (nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides) via experiments in silico and in situ; (task 2) technology, with the adaptation of the transformation processes to the protein content and quality of wheat; (task 3) process engineering, for the energetic re-design of equipments ; (task 4) economy, to characterize the strategies of innovation and analyze the behavior of the actors of the agrofood chain and propose actions of coordination. A task of integration by multi-criteria analyses and ACV has the aim of identifying the efficient levers to improve and guarantee the sustainability of the durum wheat agrofood chain (task 5).
The project is based on the know-how, skills, technical means, expertise, and complementarity of 6 scientific partners (IATE, AGIR, ARVALIS, GENIAL, PIHM, SMART), 2 technical partners (EVEA and OPTOmachines), and 2 partners representing the professional domain (CFSI and SIFPAF). All the actors of the durum wheat agrofood chain (cooperatives, industrialists, GIE, and plateforme blé dur) are integrated into the project via an advisory board, which will play a role of interface and transfer.
The project aims to generate modern scientific and technical knowledge at the service of the innovation: agronomic innovations (to identify innovative technical ways based on a reduction of the use of synthetic inputs and energy, and the substitution ways); product innovations (grains with optimized protein potentials); processes innovations (energetic adaptation of the technological ways); equipments innovations (specifications for the re-design of equipments); coordination innovation of the actors of the chain (organization scenarios). The outputs of the project aim at meeting the expectations of actors of the agrofood chain for 3 issues.
1) Valuation of the scientific works to identify indicators of impacts at the 3 dimensions of the durability (environmental, economic, and social) at the different levels of the agrofood chain: farmers (quantity of the nitrogen inputs, water consumption, production costs), transformers (valuation of the protein potential, energy consumptions and process costs of 1st and of 2nde transformation), and actors of the agrofood chain (organizational models for the management of the "innovations", social aspects).
2) Design of confrontation tools based on the indicators of durability impacts, to elaborate strategies of multi-criteria analysis for equivalent uses, by integrating the levels of the chain (e.g. environmental integrated life cycle analysis).
3) Identification and quantification of the "relevant" levers and of the difficulties to solve, to improve and strengthen the durability of the durum wheat chain, in particular by reducing its energy dependence.
The ambitions of the project can be quantified at different levels of the agrofood chain: reduction of the quantities of nitrogen fertilizer (25%), reduction of pesticides at the rotation scale (50%), and reduction of the energy consumptions by the processes (20%). All these actions will contribute to the sustainability of the durum wheat French agrofood chain, by improving its environmental efficiency and by strengthening its competitiveness.