Life Ada project meeting in Bruxelles

Boosting resilience in the agricultural sector in face of the effects of climate change: this is the main goal of Life Ada European project, led by Unipol Sai and with 8 Italian partners among which Emilia-Romagna Region.

Two meetings were organised on Tuesday 15th November in Bruxelles at the Emilia-Romagna Region EU Office (Rue Montoyer, 21), starting at 2 p.m. with a workshop focused on the strategies for supporting agriculture in the face of the challenge of climate change and the opportunities of the Life ADA project. It included the following participants:

• Angelo Gentili, National Secretary of Legambiente and national head of Legambiente Agriculture
• Alessio Mammi, Councillor for agriculture, hunting and fishing of the Emilia-Romagna Region;
• Lorenza Badiello, Director of the Emilia-Romagna Region Delegation to the EU;
• Giulia Balugani, UnipolSai Assicurazioni and spokesperson of the LIFE ADA project;
• Laura Giappichelli CINEA - European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency;
• Paolo De Castro Member of European Parliament, Commission for Agriculture;
• Nicola Di Virgilio Commissione europea DG AGRI B.2.

Afterwards the 4 p.m. meeting, more technical in nature and thus reserved to agricultural sector stakeholders, concentrated on research and technology to support agricultural supply chains to mitigate the risks deriving from climate change, the speaker for Emilia-Romagna Region was Giuseppina Felice, Head of business competitiveness and innovation development in agriculture.

The meeting gave also the opportunity of presenting during a sneak preview the web application developed, which which has translated into electronic language months of research and surveys and which, by simply georeferencing the enterprise, will make it possible to cross-reference the data gathered and translate them into a risk forecast and the corresponding mitigation measures to be taken to reduce impacts.

“Climate change – said Alessio Mammi, Councillor for agriculture, hunting and fishing of the Emilia-Romagna Region – has complex direct and indirect effects on regional agriculture based on quality production that is highly interconnected with local contexts and local climates.

Precision agriculture is a concrete opportunity for our businesses to combat the harmful effects of these changes and create the conditions to maintain a link between environmental, economic and social sustainability, guaranteeing income for businesses.

It is necessary to build a model that is also suited to our small businesses and is scalable and can be calibrated to their needs and economic investment possibilities: what is needed is publicly funded research (the Region invests 4% of total resources in research, against the Italian median of 1.5%) in addition to the development of a smart and digital outsourcing system in agriculture, also through the support of private companies like UnipolSai Assicurazioni. The ADA project fully fits within this strategy, offering actions aimed at boosting the resilience of the agricultural sector in synergy with the insurance sector.

The future challenge will be to support production, by placing plant protection, irrigation, genomic and green chemistry innovation and research at centre stage”.

Click to download the programme of the event (1.07 MB). 

Watch the video of the event on Life Ada Facebook page.