Saint-Pierre-d'Amilly is a

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

in the

Charente-Maritime Charente-Maritime () is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region on the southwestern coast of France. Named after the river Charente, its prefecture is La Rochelle. As of 2019, it had a population of 651,358 with an area of 6,864 square kil ...

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

in southwestern France.

Geography

The village of Charente-Maritime is at the extreme northeast of the Département, from the Département of

Deux-Sèvres Deux-Sèvres () is a French department. ''Deux-Sèvres'' literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department. It had a population of 374,878 in 2019.

(79) and the village of

Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon () is a commune in the Deux-Sèvres department in western France. It is the birthplace of explorer René Caillié. See also *Communes of the Deux-Sèvres department The following is a list of the 256 communes of the Deux-S ...

, and from

Surgères Surgères () is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department, southwestern France. It is the home of the Surgères 48 Hour Race. History Middle ages The site of Surgères was occupied in Neolithic times, but the earliest recorded history comes ...

, 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 is the practice of keeping and breeding birds, especially of wild birds in captivity. Types There are various reasons that people get involved in aviculture. Some people breed birds to preserve a species. Some people breed parrots a ...

(bird farming),

heliciculture Heliciculture, commonly known as snail farming, is the process of raising edible land snails, primarily for human consumption or cosmetic use. The meat and snail eggs a.k.a. ''white caviar'' can be consumed as escargot and as a type of caviar, res ...

(snail farming) and

apiculture Beekeeping (or apiculture) is the maintenance of bee colonies, commonly in man-made beehives. Honey bees in the genus '' Apis'' are the most-commonly-kept species but other honey-producing bees such as ''Melipona'' stingless bees are also kept. ...

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

seedbank A seed bank (also seed banks or seeds bank) stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity; hence it is a type of gene bank. There are many reasons to store seeds. One is to preserve the genes that plant breeders need to increase yield, disease resi ...

and plant selection institution which works on the

homologation Homologation (Greek ''homologeo'', ὁμολογέω, "to agree") is the granting of approval by an official authority. This may be a court of law, a government department, or an academic or professional body, any of which would normally work fr ...

of new vegetable varieties.GEVES
It collaborates also with french: link=no, ARVALIS - Institut du végétal ("ARVALIS - Institute of Vegetation").