Projects

ClimOliveMed: Pour une oléiculture méditerranéenne durable face au changement climatique (2021-2025) - Funded by multiple donors

Project leader: B Khadari

Scientists involved from our team : P Cubry

Olive (Olea europaea L., Oleaceae) is an iconic fruit tree species for human societies in the Mediterranean area. It is considered as a structural element of many Mediterranean agroecosystems and is currently a major global source of edible oil, whose demand is sharply increasing due to its high nutritional value. Nowadays, olive growing is still highly diversified since more than thirty varieties are cultivated in the Mediterranean Basin (MB hereafter). Olive orchards are characterized by a diversity of cropping systems, ranging from extensive and diversified agroecosystems to super-intensive. World olive oil production is estimated at 3 million t/year (~75% in European Union countries) and markets are highly diversified ranging from a mass market with standard products to niche markets for products with signs of quality and high value. ClimOliveMed project will address two pivotal questions: i) how the diversity of varieties, cropping systems can be mobilized to strengthen the sustainability of Mediterranean olive growing; and how the invaluable asset of the rich olive agrobiodiversity can serve as an insurance to face climatic change

ClimOliveMed is structured into three work packages. The first and second ones correspond to disciplinary research lines, while the third is devoted to the collective action between academic and sector actors through workshops to share knowledge and perspectives and design sustainable olive tree production trajectories.

Focusing on the diversity of olive varieties within the worldwide collection (Porquerolles and Marrakech), the first pillar aims at identifying the most relevant and easy-to-measure phenotypic traits and genomic markers. The objective is to characterize local genetic resources with respect to chilling requirements on the one hand and drought tolerance on the other hand, in order to identify olive genotypes adapted to different facets of climate change. Three aspects of olive biology will be studied: i) biological processes of olive flowering linked to winter cold temperature, ii) phenotypic traits to provide a broad view as to how olive trees cope with drought, iii) genomics of local adaptation of wild olive and genomic association to phenotypic traits of cultivated olive.

The second work package aims at understanding if and how actors of the olive productive systems will be able to capitalize on olive tree biodiversity to address climate change challenges. It will, firstly, focus on olive grower's management at the scale of the tree, the olive grove and the farm. The objective is to understand how the perception of climate change influences farmers' trajectories in terms of genetic resources management among other drivers such as market forces. Acknowledging, that market requirements is a key driver of olive tree dynamic, the second task will investigate how olive value chains governances may or not facilitate the transition toward a more sustainable olive productive system through the mobilization of olive tree genetic diversity. It will analyze how olive oil processors and traders take into account climate change issues into their strategies with regards to different institutional and policy contexts and targeted market segments.

The third work package aims at integrating and sharing knowledge within the project and with its multiple and diverse partners from the olive sector. It will create new deliberative spaces with all interested parties to reflect on the diversity of strategies for coping with climate change, and make explicit the differences in representations of the collective action problems. This objective will be achieved at the level of the consortium itself, at the territorial levels (France and Morocco), and at the global policy level. Finally, a co-construction of scenarios will be set up in order to deal with the long-term character of the targeted changes (all the more important in the case of a perennial plant such as olive tree), and identify the collective actions to be undertaken for the different scenarios/trajectories envisaged (including organizational and regulatory aspects)

ClimOliveMed will cover several scientific fields (agronomy, biology, ecophysiology, genomics, bioinformatics, economy, political sciences, ethnoecology), and will involve managers of olive genetic resources and professional actors, implying the participation of a large consortium including several French, Italian, Moroccan partners. ClimOliveMed will also promote the training of young scientists (PhD and post-docs) and will develop a collaboration with professional actors by including French, Moroccan and the IOC (International Olive Council) as partners.