Press release
, François-Xavier Branthôme
Memorandum of Understanding between the IO Pomodoro Nord Italia and the CREA
The interbranch organization for the tomato processing industry of northern Italy and the CREA (Council for agricultural research and economic analysis in the field of agriculture) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Rome that provides an official basis for their commitment to develop an intense mutual collaboration, with the purpose of offering advice and carrying out studies of the processing tomato sector, as well as supporting innovation in this industry.
According to Tiberio Rabboni, the President of the IO, "the agreement that has been signed opens the way for the development of an efficient collaboration between the IO Pomodoro Nord Italia and the most important public research body in Italy for the food and agriculture sector. This is a strategic collaboration that we have been aiming for, and which will allow us on the one hand to become direct partners in research programs of interest for the tomato processing industry, and on the other to promote specific research projects and collaborate in them with the CREA in order to deal with different topics like the improvement of production yields, analyzing the Brix content in the fields and innovating in the area of industrial processing. Competitive innovation and commercial improvements in terms of quality are currently the main levers with which we can work in order to increase the average profitability of the processing tomato industry."
From left to right: Francesco Mantino; Teodoro Cardi, Roberto Henke and Tiberio Rabboni.
This MoU has been put together by Francesco Mantino (CREA) and by the IO Pomodoro Nord Italia, and is the result of a collaboration launched years ago, which has intensified and led to the signing of this agreement by the vice-President of the CREA, Alessandra Gentile, and the President of the IO, Tiberio Rabboni.
More specifically, the agreement aims at:
• collecting social and economic data from the companies working in this industry;
• carrying out surveys within the sector regarding economic, technical and scientific issues, as well as environmental and social aspects;
• sharing databases and information resources between the two parties;
• organizing events to disseminate information and provide training;
• collaborating in various areas of common interest;
• sharing results and designing studies in the field of research and experimentation with the production and processing stages, as well as the organizational aspects of governance within the industry;
• preparing and implementing cultivation protocols for improving the quality and the quantity of production, and increasing the environmental and economic sustainability of the crop;
• evaluating agronomic performances and the suitability for industrial processing of new genotypes.
All of this will be carried out by maintaining close relations with the CREA center for politics and bio-economy, which studies the food sector in order to develop cognitive and interpretive analyses of the economic dynamics in short, medium and long-term perspectives, as well as with the Center for Research on Horticultural and Floriculture, which carries out studies with an integrated and multidisciplinary approach for genetic improvement, protection of biodiversity, agronomic innovation and the environmentally respectful protection of cultivated crops.
Source: OI Pomodoro Nord Italy, freshplaza.it
