For six days, this major event gathered key stakeholders involved in plant research, industry and education across the entire planet. Research scientists, industry professionals and horticultural students were invited to present and discuss their work, innovations and predictions, accounting for a total of 12,000 hours of oral presentations!

© Kryzalid and Destination Angers

Keynote speakers

jean jouzel

Research director (emeritus) at the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Dr Jean Jouzel is an expert in climate and glaciology. He has mainly worked on the reconstruction of past climate derived from the study of the Antarctic and Greenland ice.

Marc fesneau

Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty

rachel bezner KERR

Rachel Bezner Kerr, is a Professor in Global Development at Cornell University (New York, USA). She does participatory research in Africa on agroecology, gender, climate change adaptation, food and nutrition security. She has published over 70 scientific articles, in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Agriculture,...

Boitshepo Bibi Giyose

Boitshepo Bibi Giyose is a Senior Nutrition Officer for Policy and Programmes in the Nutrition and Food Systems Division at FAO, but currently on secondment to the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) as special advisor to the CEO since January 2018. Her work focuses on integrating and mainstreaming nutrition into...

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim 

Managing Director of the Centre International de Développement Pharmaceutique (CIDP) Research and Innovation as well as Professor of Organic Chemistry with an endowed chair at the University of Mauritius. Since 2001, she has served successively as Dean of the Faculty of Science and Pro Vice Chancellor (2004- 2010). She has...

Pierre-Marie Aubert

Head of the Agriculture & Food Policy Initiative at Iddri (Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales). With a background in landscape ecology and political sociology, his work focuses on food system scenario development. He combines for that a biophysical approach to food security functioning with a deep undertsanding...

Yvonne Pinto

Yvonne Pinto is privileged to have been born a Kenyan, raised an Ethiopian and become a UK and indeed global citizen. She has a BSc in Agriculture (Reading), MSc in Plant Biotechnology and PhD in Molecular Virology (Imperial) and General Management Executive Education (Cambridge). She has a long career focused mainly...

Jérôme Leroy

After scientific studies in Rennes and Kyoto , passionate about sport and innovation, Jérôme Leroy starts his career in Japan and join Decathlon during 15 years including 8 abroad: in Japan, Turkey, and india working for R&D department or as industrial business unit lead. With his entrepreneur spirit he co-created a spin off...

Jennie Macdiarmid

Jennie Macdiarmid is a Professor of Sustainable Nutrition and Health and the Director of Interdisciplinary Centre for Health, Nutrition and Wellbeing, University Medical School Foresterhill Aberdeen (UK). She gained a BSc (Hons) in Nutrition and Food Science from the University of Surrey, during which she spent a year at the CSIRO...

The flagship themes of this edition

Competitiveness and skills for the Horticultural sectors
Food, Public Health & Well-being
Sustainability of production systems
Climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions
Platinum Sponsors

Angers, capital of plants

Angers, located in the Loire Valley, offers a mild climate and hence benefits from the largest concentration of actors in the French plant sector: training centres (INRAe, University of Angers, Agrocampus Ouest etc.), industries (farmers, cooperatives, breeding companies, suppliers, processing industries) and also experimental centres, associations, unions, and the European Community Plant Variety Office the (CPVO). These actors are used to working together to develop innovation within VEGEPOLYS VALLEY, the international plant competitiveness cluster. Angers hosts many exhibitions and congresses dedicated to horticulture. As the first green city in France, Angers has different botanical gardens and Terra Botanica, the unique park in Europe dedicated to plant on the five continents. Plant Sector in the Pays de la Loire : 450 Researchers, 4,000 Companies, 30,000 Jobs and 3,000 Students.