Celebrated every year on 5 June since 1974, World Environment Day was established to inspire governments, companies and citizens to make a positive change on all environmental issues and in all areas of business, including agriculture.
In fact, raising awareness among a growing number of farmers to produce with a more sustainable approach and in respect of natural resources is one of the goals of this celebration, which this year is dedicated to the subject of “Ecosystem Restoration”. For a long time, human activities have been causing the indiscriminate exploitation of the Planet’s resources and while we cannot go back in time, we can take action to change the way we grow, produce and consume in order to restore ecosystems, combat climate change and halt the loss of biodiversity. These are essential requirements to guarantee enough healthy, safe food.
Ecosystem restoration can also happen through agriculture that focuses on research and innovation in order to test out and share sustainable farming practices that, at the same time, can maintain healthy crops, produce high-quality, safe products and protect natural resources, therefore reducing our environmental impact. Our experience shows that it is possible to protect crops from diseases and to do so while reducing the environmental impact. Through the “Next-Generation Potatoes” project – run together with Legambiente and the Department of Innovation in Biology, Agri-Food and Forest Systems (DIBAF) at Tuscia University – we have established a coded and sustainable cultivation protocol that helps create innovative production, free from any pesticide residues (residue under 0.01 ppm – the value of analytical detection) and produced using coded and repeatable farming practices in all Italian potato-growing areas. The potato varieties that stood out in the field inspections and during storage are Alouette, Levante and Twister. These so-called “Next-Generation” varieties passed the test in two years featuring different weather conditions and allowed Residue-Free potatoes to go on sale, i.e. free from any pesticide residues. The success of this experiment is an opportunity for the entire Italian potato sector to help with progress, sustainability and added value.
This approach is in line with the “Farm to Fork” strategy, which is at the heart of the European Green Deal, focused on promoting a new and better balance between nature and food systems and on protecting the health and well-being of citizens and the environment.
