LIH and IBLA -“Institut fir Biologësch Landwirtschaft a Agrarkultur Luxemburg a.s.b.l.”, a Luxembourgish institute specialised in research, communication and agricultural extension services in organic agriculture, recently formalised their cooperation by signing an agreement. This alliance will be beneficial to work towards a more sustainable agriculture in Luxembourg.

On 21^st February 2017, a “Memorandum of Understanding”, valid for a duration of five years, was signed by the management of both institutions to foster scientific cooperation in the field of agriculture, food production, nutrition and population health. At LIH, Dr Torsten Bohn, principal investigator at the Epidemiological and Public Health Research Unit of the Department of Population Health since 2016 and expert in nutrition and food science, is the driver of the cooperation. Dr Bohn has already collaborated successfully with IBLA on a project about organic plant breeding while working at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST).

In the framework of the agreement, LIH and IBLA plan to jointly work on research projects in the field of nutrition, submit grant proposals and co-author scientific publications. The partners also foresee to exchange scientific staff and give access to their respective research equipment and facilities.

With the worldwide population growth, agricultural practices and dietary habits need to be reconsidered. ‘We have to reflect today on how we can feed the world in 20 or 30 years’, claims Dr Bohn. ‘Protein-rich vegetables such as legumes can be a sustainable food source. A possible joint research project in which LIH’s expertise in health and nutrition and IBLA’s knowhow in agriculture could be combined, would be to investigate the nutritional value of protein-rich vegetables and whether those can be sustainably cultivated in Luxembourg’, he states.