Section: Application Domains

Agronomy

Agronomy is a strong expertise domain in the area of Montpellier. Some members of GraphIK are INRA researchers (computer scientists). We closely collaborate with the Montpellier research laboratory IATE, a join unit of INRA and other organisms. A major issue for INRA and more specifically IATE applications is modeling agrifood chains (i.e., the chain of all processes leading from the plants to the final products, including waste treatment). This modeling has several objectives. It provides better understanding of the processes from begin to end, which aids in decision making, with the aim of improving the quality of the products and decreasing the environmental impact. It also facilitates knowledge sharing between researchers, as well as the capitalization of expert knowledge and “know how”. This last point is particularly important in areas strongly related to local know how (like in cheese or wine making), where knowledge is transmitted by experience, with the risk of non-sustainability of the specific skills. An agrifood chain analysis is a highly complex procedure since it relies on numerous criteria of various types: environmental, economical, functional, sanitary, etc. Quality objectives involve different stakeholders, technicians, managers, professional organizations, end-users, public organizations, etc. Since the goals of the implied stakeholders may be divergent dedicated knowledge and representation techniques are to be employed.