Our century is the scene of a major challenge for agriculture. We remain perplexed by the need to feed a growing population and to grow independent of those industrial practices which, as we know today, destroy our soils, kill our ecosystems and produce food of often mixed quality.

The competitiveness of small agricultural systems against intensive monoculture rests on their capacity to grow in resilience, sustainability and efficiency in natural resources management. When it come to identifying how to develop along these lines, we realize it varies subtly from one region to the next, depending on a series of factors.

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Across Atlantic Europe, West Africa, northern South America, Central America and the West Indies; Matthieu sets out to meet small conventional farmers, traditional extensive farmers and small farmers with low endowments to try to understand these factors. Each region will be analyzed according to its climatic, geophysical, cultural and political influences and by identifying existing sustainable water and soil management practices. His goal is also, through systemic reflection, fieldwork and discussions, to identify relevant practices and to determine how to integrate them into existing systems to help develop sustainability and resilience.

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The dissemination of these ideas will happen in two ways. The first is by organizing workshops locally. The objective of these workshops is to engage and support rural communities in the process of thinking about why and how to adapt their land and water management to strengthen sustainability and resilience.

The second will be mediatic and will feed SEAD's travel portfolio. This, to raise the general public's awareness of the reality of subsistence in rural areas and the impact of current climate and societal changes. SEAD's media community will be invited to participate in the crew's reflection process.