Green Dairy, a Project for Environmental Friendly and Sustainable Dairy Systems in the Atlantic Area

Green Dairy is an European Interreg III B project which runs over 3 years. It brings together 10 research and development partners from 5 countries and 11 regions of the Atlantic Area which range from Scotland to Portugal. It aims to provide a better understanding of the impact of intensive dairy systems on the quality of the environment in order to develop ways of improving practices in the different regions. This is expected to encourage more rapid responses to the problems of deteriorating water and air quality and a more appropriate response within or between regional contexts that could be used as proposals for implementation of regulations or advice

Assessment and comparisons of the environmental, economic and social performances of organic and conventional cattle systems

The main objective of "CedABio" was to estimate the environmental and socioeconomic benefits anticipated in the bovine farming systems adopting an organic production mode. Beyond some obvious advantages, the goal was to measure and ascertain the real contributions of a change to organic farming for the dairy and beef farms. To lead this assessment, strong and technically accessible indicators were selected, tested, and then looked for in 144 livestock farms, located in varied contexts to take into account territorial diversity. Half of the farms were in organic mode. Their results are compared with the other half producing in conventional mode, situated in the same zones, with similar structures. The results and the observations performed in this network of commercial farms are completed by additional measures on two experimental farms in organic production in the INRA station of Mirecourt in J. Pavie et al. 28 Innovations Agronomiques 30 (2013), 27-40 dairy production and in Thorigné d’Anjou in beef production. The observations and studies took into account three axes of the sustainability: environmental, economic and social. The environmental axis includes the analysis of mineral balances, energy consumptions, biodiversity, gas emissions, consumptions of sanitary and phytosanitary products as well as management of waste. The social axis took into account workload and animal welfare. If some outputs confirmed results of previous works and the anticipated profit of a conversion to organic farming, all do not show the same degree of interest for a conversion to organic farming. Some elements of context, localization, quality of the surroundings, levels of technical control observed in some conventional farms, reduce the interest expected from a conversion to organic farming

Targeting A20 Decreases Glioma Stem Cell Survival and Tumor Growth

The A20 protein is a known inhibitor of apoptosis that here is shown to be a novel cancer stem cell-promoting factor associated with poor glioma patient survival

A model-based assessment of C storage potential of French grasslands: a national study

International audienceFrom a climate change perspective, grassland soils have the ability to sequester C. However, there are still uncertainties on the magnitude of C sequestration potential, and their use in climate initiatives (i.e. 4p1000). Average values (± standard error) of 0.7±0.1 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for permanent grassland (PG), and 0.4 to 0.8 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for grass-ley (temporary grassland, TG), have been cited by different studies, while soil inventory reports only 0.05±0.3 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1. These discrepancies can be attributed to differences in pedo-climatic conditions, intensity and type of management, but also to age and lifetime of temporary grasslands (TG). To analyse in detail C sequestration potential of French grasslands, a national study ‘4p1000 France’ was conducted to identify (1) C ‘storing’ practices; (2) their potential to be adopted as mitigation option; and (3) their cost of implementation. Along with a literature review, a modelling approach at fine spatial-scale resolution (1 km2) was used to simulate key grassland managements for PG and TG identified from agricultural statistics. Results showed that insertion of TG gained additional +0.47 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1, while the replacement of mowing by grazing of intensively used PGs added +0.3 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 to soil, compared to baseline (0.26 and 0.21 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for TG and PG). C storage under baseline and mitigation practices was able to offset field-based greenhouse gas emissions over French grassland areas

A model-based assessment of C storage potential of French grasslands: a national study

International audienceFrom a climate change perspective, grassland soils have the ability to sequester C. However, there are still uncertainties on the magnitude of C sequestration potential, and their use in climate initiatives (i.e. 4p1000). Average values (± standard error) of 0.7±0.1 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for permanent grassland (PG), and 0.4 to 0.8 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for grass-ley (temporary grassland, TG), have been cited by different studies, while soil inventory reports only 0.05±0.3 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1. These discrepancies can be attributed to differences in pedo-climatic conditions, intensity and type of management, but also to age and lifetime of temporary grasslands (TG). To analyse in detail C sequestration potential of French grasslands, a national study ‘4p1000 France’ was conducted to identify (1) C ‘storing’ practices; (2) their potential to be adopted as mitigation option; and (3) their cost of implementation. Along with a literature review, a modelling approach at fine spatial-scale resolution (1 km2) was used to simulate key grassland managements for PG and TG identified from agricultural statistics. Results showed that insertion of TG gained additional +0.47 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1, while the replacement of mowing by grazing of intensively used PGs added +0.3 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 to soil, compared to baseline (0.26 and 0.21 Mg C ha‑1 yr‑1 for TG and PG). C storage under baseline and mitigation practices was able to offset field-based greenhouse gas emissions over French grassland areas