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DEC. JAN. 2019 VII AGRICULTURE OF PRECISION AND QUALITY For Nicola Lacetera, director of the Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences University of La Tuscia in Viterbo: “The challenge of the future will be to provide food to a growing population, with the need to increase production while trying to avoid waste. We will have major problems with meat, milk and eggs, with regard to how the world population group is increasing with greater access to sources of animal origin, considered “noble” for the qualities of the protein”. A talk of quantity linked to a non-unlimited availability of food, land and water: “but you can achieve greater or equal production with animal husbandry and precision agriculture”, an area linked to the technique and research that allows, for example, to supply water or chemical substances for the production process, fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides in minimum quantities, systems that allow us to understand the needs of plants: “the use of these systems will reduce the use of chemicals, but also of water: with technological systems that detect the degree of hydrometry, based on the moisture content of the soil and decide how much to irrigate”, then adds Lacetera: “I think about the genetic improvement of plants and bred animals, the ability to convert the resources used in parts of the plant or animal”. This is as far as the quantitative aspects are concerned. Then, the expert continues: “For years we have been talking about the quality of food products. Until the post-war period, over 50 years ago, it was considered “good” that which did not make one ill, emphasized the immediate minimum hygienic and sanitary requirement”, with only one thought to fill the stomach: “With economic improvement – says the teacher of animal husbandry – the concept has widened, there is an organoleptic quality of food, the area of the senses. Then a chemical quality, interest in food composition (what’s inside what I eat), nutritional quality and the need to know if a food is more or less suitable for category of food. consumers: intolerant substances, allergic substances, products for the elderly, children”. One final aspect is the technological quality that will be increasingly important for tomorrow’s food: “Milk destined to become cheese must have specific qualities. Meat will have to become preserved. Industrial eggs, the egg products used in the confectionery industry, or in the production of egg pasta, will require some technological features, such as the pigmentation of the yolk.” The last frontier of food will all be in 3 parameters related to the perception of the product by the consumer, for Lacetera: “More and more we will choose products with 1) environmental value: what’s the environmental cost in producing an asparagus, an apple, milk, a salami? If that production process has been attentive to the consumption of resources, or if it has put dangerous pollutants into the soil. The population group attentive to environmental issues is growing, and is willing to accept a higher price; 2) animal welfare or how the animal that made the product available has been treated, example: the clear preference of the free-range eggs against the same inherent characteristics; 3) consumers who recognize added value to a product if the process used work of disadvantaged groups (prisoners, migrants) social agriculture”. Finally: “Communication and certifications (bio) will have an important role.” LOCAL PRODUCE, FARMERS MARKETS: WE ARE ALL FARMERS! For Rolando Manfredini, Head of Food and Production Safety Area Coldiretti: “The issue must be looked at from a general point of view, Europe is the world’s leading producer of food but also the world’s largest importer, this says a lot about our era of globalized food: food is exchanged all over the world, on average to arrive on our tables it covers 2000 km, even Italy is subject to a substantial import system.” But which type of food are we talking about? “When covering long distances it is 80% transformed, handled, only 20% is fresh food: these dynamics have affected the last 20 years, and in countries with a food security very different from ours. European and Italian rules are to safeguard food safety. The same cannot be said of agricultural products from the rest of the world. Here the system is controlled, food is not only a commodity, it allows us to live, it represents our history, it is tradition: think of Parmesan cheese, which is 1000 years old!” Solutions for the future. For Manfredini they are, literally, at hand: “Operators should turn to a product that doesn’t have to travel far, local produce is a saying, the journey of food must be as short as possible, this is a guarantee of freshness and quality but this also implies less waste, less distances to travel therefore less smog and less traffic, then no preservative additives are used, it is a natural food. Ours is a model of agriculture that refers to the short supply chain, to local production, to the system of production which guarantees safety and quality.” Climate change: “Agriculture is an exposed sector, we are in the open air, in recent years many things have changed – there was a drought period in 2017, this year we have had extreme events and whirlwinds, lowering and sudden rises of temperatures – but agriculture is accustomed to the changes, it is moving in more suitable