Two years ago, the First OFE international conference (#OFE2021) was organized in Montpellier. Over the last 2 years, many OFE activities have been set up at INRAE and in various agricultural technical institutes including ACTA, Terres Innovia, Arvalis and others.

• Toffolini, Q. and Jeuffroy, M.H., 2022. On-farm experimentation practices and associated farmer-researcher relationships: a systematic literature review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 42(6), p.114. (following the OFE2021 conference), 
• Salembier, C., Aare, A.K., Bedoussac, L., Chongtham, I.R., de Buck, A., Dhamala, N.R., Dordas, C., Finckh, M.R., Hauggaard-Nielsen, H., Krysztoforski, M. and Lund, S., 2023. Exploring the inner workings of design-support experiments: Lessons from 11 multi-actor experimental networks for intercrop design. European Journal of Agronomy, 144, p.126729., to introduce the results of the European Project ReMIX (Redesigning European cropping systems based on species mixtures; Grant agreement ID: 727217)
• A workshop on the value of OFE on October,18, 2023 (Montpellier) is jointly organized by INRAE and the CGIAR, as part of the preparatory seminars for the #OFE2023 conference;

And above all, INRAE has hired two permanent staff members to work on OFE: Anice Cheraiet, researcher at UMR ITAP (Montpellier), specializing in data science for OFE, and Clémentine Meunier, research engineer at UMR AGIR (Toulouse), specializing in stakeholder networks in OFE.
All these encouraging signs show that, in France, OFE is definitively taking off !

New approaches to generating knowledge are needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Participatory action research (PAR) builds on and expands the scientific process through engagement of scientists (ecological, agricultural, and social) with stakeholders in a systematic manner. To illustrate iterative co-learning cycles, we report on two decades of PAR in rural communities in Malawi. Read the full paper by Snapp et al. (2023) here.

If you want to learn about the diversity of OFE, its value proposition and contribute to shape the Global OFE Network, don’t forget to register to the #OFE2023 by using this link. Authors of the #OFE2023 have submitted their contributions, and the review process is underway. The topics of these publications are distributed across five main themes: Agronomy, Data & Technology, Implementation, Scaling & Policy, and Strategy. Stay tuned to learn more about these themes and the conference program (coming soon) by visiting the #OFE2023 website.