International Land Coalition

Members Profiles

Africa	Asia	Latin America	Global

Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche pour le Développement (CIRAD)

CIRAD -Research Centre

Creation: Year 1994

Working Language: French and English

Organization Type: Research Centre

Web Site: www.cirad.fr

Headquarters Address: 42, rue Scheffer 75116 Paris, France

Tel. (0)1 53 70 20 00 - Fax. 33 (0)1 47 55 15 30

Focal Person for ILC: Ward Anseeuw

Email Address:ward.anseeuw@up.ca.za

CIRAD is a French agricultural research centre working for international development. Most of its research is conducted in partnership. CIRAD has chosen sustainable development as the cornerstone of its operations worldwide. This means taking account of the long-term ecological, economic and social consequences of change in developing communities and countries.

Mission:
CIRAD's main mandate is to "contribute to rural development in tropical and subtropical countries through research, experimentation, training operations in France and overseas, and scientific and technical information, primarily in the fields of agriculture, forestry and agrifoods", in accordance with the statutes drafted when it was founded in 1984.
Objectives:
- To contribute to economic development by supporting local agriculture
- To conduct scientific operations with an international scope.
- To foster regional and European cooperation by setting up centres of scientific excellence.
Activities/Main areas of work:
- Agricultural research needs to focus on three inextricably linked issues:
  the human and social issue: access to food, consumption patterns, and food safety and security,
  
  the environment and energy issue: designing new agricultural production systems aimed at preventing environmental risks while ensuring that countries in the South can exploit the natural resources they need for their development,
  
  the governance and public policy issue: alleviating poverty and overcoming structural inequalities as the preferred means of preventing and resolving conflict (riots over hunger issues, territorial conflict, etc).
  
  Based on these three issues, CIRAD has drawn up six strategic lines of research:
- Inventing ecologically intensive farming systems to feed the world
- Analysing the conditions for the development of biofuels and ensuring that they benefit people in developing countries
- Innovating, to make food accessible, varied and safe
- Foreseeing and managing infectious disease risks linked to wildlife and domestic animals
- Supporting public policies aimed at reducing structural inequality and poverty
- Understanding relationships between agriculture and the environment and between human communities and nature better, so as to manage rural areas sustainably.
Coverage: CIRAD operates in over 50 countries worldwide. Throughout its history, it has established and maintained close links with human societies, places of agricultural production, livestock and forestry, physical and biological environments of tropical and subtropical countries
Beneficiaries:
Membership/Affiliations
The major part of CIRAD’s research is conducted in partnership with other organizations. The programmes on which our researchers work with their counterparts are drawn up and implemented jointly. CIRAD has a wide range of partners: public authorities, research organizations, universities, private firms, producer groups, smallholder professional organizations, agro industrial firms, nongovernmental organizations, etc.

To know more about:
Strategic vision 2008-2012
The CIRAD strategic plan, with the main strategic objectives for the coming ten years (2000-2010)
CIRAD brochure