The ILLIAD project: sustainable, local or localized, innovative food chains - application to apricot production

ILLIAD (2012-2015), a French national project, aims to propose a set of indicators of system sustainability (sustainable food system, local agri-food systems, food chain analysis), and to test them on three case studies, which are three typical trajectories of construction of sustainable food chains, namely chain innovation (stone fruits), chain differentiation (rice) and territorial embedding (wheat). Although French apricot production resists outside competition, it is weakened by the high variability of harvests and the resulting high variability of apricot price and supply, particularly for processing. A solution to this variability could be the setting up of dedicated orchards with long-term commitments from both producer and processor. The project explores the conditions and consequences of this dedicated orchard, from technical to economic points of view. An ideotype for a dedicated orchard will be built, including aspects of cultivar selection, and conditions in terms of chain organization will be designed. Concerning fresh apricot, the ILLIAD project will work on development of alternative marketing channels, such as direct sales from producers to consumers.