b'TECHNOLOGYRESCUE!TO THEAN IN-DEPTH STUDY IN FRENCH AGRICULTURE .BY: MARCEL BRUINSINTRODUCTION:France is often considered one of the, if not THE leading agri-cultural country in the EU. In 2018, the French agricultural industry contribution to the EU-28 total agricultural output was close to 18 per cent, well ahead of Italy, Spain and Germany. It is the No. 1 country in Europe for the production of cereals, poultry and beef, and is second, behind Germany, for milk and sugar beet. And with about 730,000 farms, approximately seven per cent of the workforce is employed in agriculture or similar sectors such as fishing or forestry. According to data of the EU Commission, France also has the largest rural population of the EU: 19.6%. The country is a top EU exporter, and second in the world, behind the United States of America. However, French agriculture is facing several challenges, social, economic and technical and its image is often distorted by alarmist messagesall the problems, we decided in 2016 to set up a working group circulating on the internet. Faced with this finding, 30 membersto analyse the situation. We interviewed 10 farmers producing of the French agriculture and technology academies set up adifferent crops with different cropping systems, conventional or working group to study the possible contribution of technolo- organic, to understand their main technical challenges. Then we gies to help farmers face their technical challenges and havepresented those challenges to scientists and agricultural indus-captured their findings in a book titled Lagriculture facesestry specialists to see if they had some technological solutions.dfis techniquesLapport des technologies. European SeedIn summary, Le Buanec says the main findings are that the spoke with the chairman of the working group and main author,three most important technical challenges, whatever the crops Bernard Le Buanec. and the cropping systems, are the following:French agriculture is facing several challenges, says Le t he control of diseases and pests with a particular view Buanec. Whilst knowing that technologies alone cannot solveof the impact of climatic change and emerging diseases;the control of weeds with a particular impact for field crops in organic agriculture; t he water stress and the water limitations during the dry periods.Several other challenges that are indicated in the book have also been cited.24IEUROPEAN SEEDIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'