Saint-Pierre-d'Amilly is a commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 in the Charente-Maritime

Charente-Maritime

Charente-Maritime is a department on the west coast of France named after the Charente River.- History :Previously a part of Saintonge, Charente-Inférieure was one of the 83 original departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

 department in southwestern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

Geography

The village of Charente-Maritime is at the extreme northeast of the Département, 3 km (2 mi) from the Département of Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres

Deux-Sèvres is a French département. Deux-Sèvres literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department.-History:...

 (79) and the village of Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon

Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon

Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France.-References:*...

, and 10 km (6 mi) from Surgères

Surgères

Surgères is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department in southwestern France. It is the home of the Surgères 48 Hour Race.-Surrounding communes:...

, the seat of the canton.

Places and monuments

• Church of St Paul, built in roughcast limestone in 1871, to replace two older churches that had been ruined by the wars that ravaged the region.

• The commune also has a war memorial, near the Church of St Paul.

Population

Economy

The commune is home to the Magernaud site of the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), specialising in the improvement of aviculture

Aviculture

Aviculture is the practice of keeping and breeding birds and the culture that forms around it. Aviculture is generally focused on not only the raising and breeding of birds, but also on preserving avian habitat, and public awareness campaigns....

 (bird farming), heliciculture

Heliciculture

Heliciculture, or snail farming is the process of farming or raising land snails specifically for human consumption, and more recently, to obtain snail slime for cosmetics use....

 (snail farming) and apiculture (beekeeping). This site also houses an outpost of GEVES, the ("Group for the study and control of varieties and seeds"), a seedbank

Seedbank

A seedbank stores seeds as a source for planting in case seed reserves elsewhere are destroyed. It is a type of gene bank. The seeds stored may be food crops, or those of rare species to protect biodiversity. The reasons for storing seeds may be varied...

 and plant selection institution which works on the homologation

Homologation

Homologation is a technical term, derived from the Greek homologeo for "to agree", which is generally used in English to signify the granting of approval by an official authority...

of new vegetable varieties. It collaborates also with ("ARVALIS - Institute of Vegetation").