Université catholique de Louvain/ELIA
In my training as agricultural engineer (AgroParisTech, France), I was stricken by the fact that technical, ecological, social, political and philosophical dimensions are deeply intertwinned in food and agriculture related issues. Continuous contacts with farmers from the North and the South convinced me of the interest to learn navigating within this complexity. I am trying to develop humbly and step by step the knowledge, skills and posture to tend toward this ideal and contribute as a scientist to make food systems more sustainable. My first experiences took place in various contexts:
– management of organic coffee in agroforestry systems in Peru;
– designing grassland based livestock systems in France and assessing their economic and environmental impacts using a collective design game or analysing data of large scale systemic experimental trials;
– exploring the viability of small scale diversified organic market gardens (microfarms) in Ireland, France and the United Kingdom in rural and urban areas. This is on this topic that I did my PhD at INRA (France) combining quantitative methods (modeling) and qualitative approaches inspired by social sciences.
My work about microfarms brought me in touch with different alternative approaches to farming such as permaculture, natural farming and biointensive farming which I am keeping exploring to understand in which extent different worldviews or ways of perceiving nature can impact farming practices and may contribute to the agroecological transition.
I am currently working at UCL in the European Project DiverIMPACTS (http://www.diverimpacts.net/) where I am contributing to analyse and overcome the barriers to agricultural diversification at the farm and value chain levels for different productions (cereals, vegetables, livestock) in different contexts and European country.
Contact: kevin.morel@uclouvain.be
