Commitment N° 2: To innovate to produce more and better

Limagrain's major objective in its research programs is to improve the performances of its plant varieties in agronomy, quality and industrial aptitudes performances. It is often forgotten that several pests and pathogens attack plants and diminish both the quantity and the quality of our food resources. With these issues in mind we can better understand the role of breeders who improve plants by creating varieties that respond to abiotic stresses (drought, cold, heat, soil salinity) and biotic stresses (insects, viruses, bacteria, fungi, weeds). They also seek out specific qualities for human and animal nutrition and varieties that are better adapted to industrial needs. In a context where farmers are confronted with legislation that reduces the range of products to fight against diseases, our researchers and agronomists are mobilized to imagine the most efficient solutions.

Nowadays, yields observed throughout the world are extremely heterogeneous. They can vary from 1 to 10, or even 15, for all crops. Such underachievement in production can be put down to a lack of access to production resources and losses before and after harvesting. Alongside crucial agricultural policies, plant improvement remains the main solution, combined with the evolution of growing techniques. Breeders are faced with a great many challenges, but they now have numerous tools at their disposal too. Over the past twenty years, the range of tools available to breeders has considerably grown, so that now they can accelerate breeding generations, better characterize genetic resources, better understand the resistance of plants to diseases and insects, and better understand their behavior when confronted with a hydric deficit or a lack of nitrogen. And we must not forget genotyping, which can give efficient indications on the most interesting plants to be kept, or indeed transgenesis which can also be used to broaden genetic variability.

Limagrain aims at rigorous control of all its chains, from collection right up to transformation, through optimal traceability, from the variety right up to the cereal seeds. Our production chain organization means that consumers have access to healthy products, based on professional production methods In most countries today, the marketing of seeds or young plants for an agricultural or vegetable crop variety is subject to strict regulations. Marketing regulations can be divided up into two categories. The first, “catalogue” regulations or homologation, is a selective procedure. It applies in most countries in the world with the exception, for example, of the United States and Japan. The second, which concerns seed certification, is based on variety certification that covers the identity and varietal purity, and on the technological certification that guarantees the specific purity and the germination faculty of the seeds.

In order to anticipate market requirements, Limagrain Céréales Ingrédients has developed new products that are innovative and nutritional. Products containing less fat after expansion, low in salt or completely salt free, and multi-cereal products that are rich in fiber. With its Nutritional Charter, Jacquet makes commitments on quantitative and qualitative criteria that go beyond regulatory measures and public health policies (salt, sugar, fat that is a source of essential fatty acids or flour with a maximum amount of bran). Jacquet thus devel-ops products that deal with nutrition issues and consumer demands. In this vein, Jacquet has decided to drop palm oil (as an ingredient or an additive support) from its recipes, in favor of other oils that are richer in unsaturated fatty acids, whose use improves the nutritional quality of bakery products.