Technological transfer of innovative agricultural practices within fruit and horticultural ecosystems
The fruit and vegetable sector accounts for about 40% of GDP produced by the entire farming sector.
Competitiveness, the need to reduce production costs, the demand for high quality products, and the increase of environmental awareness associated with resource conservation are questions that the fruit and vegetable sector is called upon to answer.
Several scientific studies as well as chain projects carried out during the 2007/2013 programming period have developed a number of useful activities to increase the competitiveness of fruit and vegetable companies. Such knowledge, linked to the efficiency of resource utilization, however, needs to be widely disseminated.
The project will be part of a series of activities to enable the transfer of innovations. The dissemination activities will take into account efficient mature technologies with particular reference to:
- Efficient use of resources with particular regard to nutrition and irrigation with mitigation of environmental risks;
- Monitoring and determination of quality aspects of productions;
- Increased carbon in the soil and Potential Impacts;
- Enhancement of productions. The innovations introduced will be evaluated to quantify the incidence both from the economic and the environmental point of view
In representative companies of the fruit and vegetable sector, to ensure the transfer and training of the Producers' Organizations technicians and as a consequence of the operators, the innovations identified in the previous action will be applied and validated. With regard to nutrition, field transfer activities will be programmed to monitor the amount of nitrogen in the soil (depth 50 cm) during the annual cycle directly in the selected farms. Relatively simple, fast and inexpensive techniques will be used (eg Nitracheck 404, Merkoquant).
Following the measurements, given the characteristics of nitrogen (leachable element), the fact that it is available as a result of the mineralization process and its high potential pollutant, will demonstrate how to make the contributions of this element with reference to soil availability for mitigate the environmental risk. In order to disseminate useful techniques to increase carbon in the soil, and to use soil as an atmospheric carbon reservoir, in the selected companies, sustainable management techniques will be implemented. As far as soil management is concerned, the results of the integrated PSR 2007-2013 "IQuaSoPO" chain project funded by the Basilicata Region for soil quality improvement will be applied. As a final result, we will apply the most effective technologies for the development of the Fruit and Vegetables sector.
At this stage of the project, it will be quantifying the convenience of applying innovations in economic terms, with cost reduction and increased revenues, as well as in environmental terms with the reduction of impacts. In addition, production enhancement processes will be applied to have a positive impact on the markets. LCA analysis will be performed by considering PCRs (product category rules); Lifecycle analysis will have to evaluate and quantify the energy, environmental and potential impacts associated with the product / process throughout the life cycle, from raw material acquisition to end of life ("from Cradle to Tomb") . The analysis will help identify the most impacted life cycle phases considering both the carbon footprint and the water footprint. These activities will allow us to evaluate how the application of innovations influences in terms of environmental impact. This approach will be useful to give added value to the productions whose companies will be able to communicate to end consumers as agriculture is committed to mitigating its impact and carrying out an eco-system for land storage. As a final result there will be the diffusion of techniques and technologies for product valorisation and an economic evaluation of the application of innovations.
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