Contemporary agriculture confronts the challenge of increasing demand in terms of quantitative and qualitative production targets. These targets have to be achieved against the background of soil and water scarcity, worldwide and regional shifts in the patterns of land use driven by both climate change and the need to develop crop-based sources of energy, and the environmental and social aspects of agricultural sustainability.
Victor Sadras is a crop ecophysiologist with interest in the adaptation of crops to environmental stresses, including water deficit, extreme temperatures, nutrient deficit, soil physical and chemical constraints, pathogens and insects. He has measured and modelled aspects of the water, carbon and nitrogen economies of annual (wheat, field pea, chickpea, sunflower, maize, soybean, cotton) and perennial crops (grapevine, olive) in rain-fed and irrigated systems.
Dr. Daniel Calderini is a full professor of the Plant Production and Plant Protection Institute of Universidad Austral de Chile since 2002. He has specialised in the Physiology of Crops and Cereals. Dr. Calderini was distinguished with The People's Republic of China Friendship Award. He is Coordinator of the Network "Sustainable Intensification of Extensive Crop Production” of the Ibero-American Program of Science and Technology for Development. He was the head of the Graduate School and the Doctorate Program of the Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences. His physiological research was carried out on pea, lupin, rapeseed, sunflower and quinoa in addition to temperate cereals.