FRANCE

Association de Coordination Technique Agricole (ACTA)

www.acta.asso.fr

Contact: Pauline Bodin, Pauline.Bodin@acta.asso.fr

As network leader for animal and plant supply chains, ACTA federates 18 technical agricultural institutes (ITA). The ITAs represent the applied research level of the French agricultural research and development system. ACTA and the ITAs were created and are still directed by the farmers themselves. The Agricultural Technical Institutes are aimed to meet the farmers’ expectations in terms of research in order to give them directly applicable results. Their activities aim to improve competitiveness of farms and adapt production systems to the society expectations, reply to the request on processing products and quality approach from the producer to the consumer. Each ITA is specialized in one or few production area(s) whereas ACTA carries on research on transversal and cross cutting innovative themes. Those institutes provide an interface between farmer needs and academic research. The Institutes are also a strong technical support for the actors in the different production sectors and carry out research on behalf of farmers’ groups. They play major roles in scientific and technical watch, experimentation, knowledge assembly, dissemination and training, support to public policies.

ACTA is working with three third parties in DISARM project, with whom it regularly collaborates: IDELE, ITAVI and IFIP. ACTA will be responsible for the overall French input to the project with IDELE working with dairy farmers and responsible for the creation of the community of practice, ITAVI working with the poultry sector and IFIP with the pig sector.