AGFORWARD Third General Assembly

The AGFORWARD consortium held a successful Third General Assembly at Montpellier SupAgro in Southern France on 26 and 27 May 2016. This was an ideal venue as the meeting rooms and cafeteria were all in the same building. Our hosts were Christian Dupraz, Marie Gosme, and Delphine Mézière from INRA. In total 48 AGFORWARD researchers attended the two day meeting and we were pleased to welcome six participants to their first AGFORWARD meeting. The meeting was preceded by the Third European Agroforestry Conference, also at Montpellier, between 23 and 25 May where many researchers had presented their work to up to 270 delegates.

The Project Co-ordinator, Paul Burgess, also welcomed members of the External Expert Advisory Panel to the General Assembly: Professor Shibu Jose from the University of Missouri, Professor PK Nair with Professor Vimala Nair from the University of Florida, and Dr Gerry Lawson from Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK. The External Expert Advisory Panel contributed positively to the various workshops and provided helpful guidance on how to advance the research and dissemination activities.

The General Assembly was primarily a working meeting with individuals working together to advance the completion of various milestones and deliverables that contribute to the overall aim of the project to promote agroforestry in Europe and the completion of the Second Progress Report. We hope to report these on the AGFORWARD website during the coming months.