Cécile Bessou

Cécile Bessou is an agronomist from ENESAD, Dijon (Master degree, 2001), specialized in resource management and rural development in tropical areas (ENGREF, Montpellier, and MSc at the TU Munich) and doctor in environmental sciences (PhD degree, 2009) from AgroParisTech, Paris. Within the three-year PhD project, she developed her skills in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) while focusing on the modeling of agricultural field emissions with case studies on biofuels.

Since 2010, she has been working at CIRAD within the research unit on perennial cropping systems (UPR 34). The researchers within this team work on both agricultural and environmental issues concerning perennial crops such as Oil Palm, Rubber or Coffee tree. Cécile works on the assessment of oil palm environmental impacts, notably on the development and adaptation of the LCA methodology and agri-ecological indicators for the oil palm. Her main research activities, together with the scientists from the Hortsys research unit, cover inclusion of variability of cropping systems, modeling environmental fluxes and perennial cycles within LCA, and harmonization of methods and results comparability.

Topics : Life cycle assessment, cropping systems, perennial crops, oil palm, agri-ecological indicators, tropics, flux modelling, environment, variability.

Claudine Basset-Mens

Claudine Basset-Mens is an agronomist from Supagro, Montpellier (Master degree, 1997) and doctor in environmental sciences (PhD degree, 2005) from Agro-Campus Ouest school in Rennes, France.

With a 15 years experience at the interface between agriculture and environment, she conducted most of her research on the assessment of environmental impacts for food and farming systems in a wide range of situations (France, New-Zealand, French overseas departments, Morocco, Tunisia, West Africa…) and production systems (animal and crop production systems, horticultural systems). She is currently working in the Hortsys unit in CIRAD on the development and adaptation of the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (LCA) for horticultural production systems in the Tropics, including perennial fruit production systems and short-cycle vegetables production systems. Her main research focus covers: inclusion of variability, environmental fluxes modelling, uncertainty, modelling of perennial cycle within LCA and harmonization of methods and results comparability.

Topics: Life cycle assessment, fruits, perennial crops, short-cycle vegetables, tropics, fluxes, environment, variability, uncertainty, modelling.