Cardoon:a low environmental impact cultivation to redevelopment of marginal areas
Promote the creation and development of a locally integrated agro-industrial supply chain to offer a new income opportunity to farmers who operate in marginal or no longer productive land with the sole use of traditional crops, through:
- the introduction / adaptation in the company of already existing and tested practices, processes and technologies that allow an improvement in economic and environmental performance (reduction of production costs and containment of negative environmental externalities);
- diversification of local agricultural production also for the exploration of new market outlets.
1. Animation and networking.
2. Tests of cultivation of organic thistle on land with scarce accessibility, in comparison with other annual oleaginous crops, in marginal hilly areas, on low-fertile and scarcely accessible land, on hilly and clayey soils.
3. Coordination of activities of the pilot farms and analysis of the sustainability of the cultivation of the thistle.
4. Techno-scientific evaluation of solutions for the exploitation of by-products.
5. Proof of feeding of beef cattle with thistle flour.
6. Benchmarking and scouting subjects for the completion of the supply chain.
7. Monitoring.
8. Information and training.
The project idea concerns the introduction, in some areas of Tuscany, of a culture with low environmental impact, such as thistle, to support and supplement farmers' income. Where traditional crops are no longer profitable and land is progressively abandoned, the introduction of such crops in an integration with the industry, as the main but not exclusive user of the agricultural product, can provide important answers to the restructuring needs of the economic and environmental sector and redevelopment of the territory.
The project involves the Mugello (Florence) and the geothermal area of 4 Municipalities of the provinces of Pisa and Grosseto.
The cardo, suitable for poor, degraded, poorly used and / or abandoned land because of negative economic margins and, at the same time, useful for the development of green chains (bioeconomy), responds to a plurality of needs in these areas. It adapts to different pedoclimatic conditions, does not require significant chemical inputs and gives rise to a product that, in its different components, responds to different purposes (oil seeds, biomass for energy purposes, cake for feed use, straw for energy use or for litter).
Its cultivation, alongside traditional crops contributes to the diversification of companies, increasing the yields of the land, reducing costs and optimizing revenues, creating a system economy that involves agriculture and industry.
| Titolo/Descrizione | Url | Tipologia |
|---|---|---|
|
Sito web del progetto
|
Sito web
|
|
|
Video racconto del progetto
|
Materiali utili
|
|
|
Relazione tecnica finale del progetto
|
Materiali utili
|
|
|
Practice abstract
|
Materiali utili
|