Agriculture, resistant variety trials soon to be extended and financed

'Field trials of new resistant varieties are neither endangered nor under discussion'. The day after the alarm launched by Copagri on the possible stop by the Parliament to the field experimentation of varieties resulting from Assisted Evolution Techniques, i.e. plants resistant to water and climatic stresses as well as to plant diseases (thus minimising the use of plant protection products), the president of the Senate's Committee on Industry and Agriculture, Luca De Carlo, takes the floor.

The alarm launched yesterday by Copagri was linked to the fact that the field trial of these varieties (which cover sectors from rice to cereals, from fruit and vegetables to wine) has an end date of 31 December next year and the amendment to the Ddl converting the Dl Economia that was supposed to extend the trial 'has been unexpectedly withdrawn in the Senate Budget Committee,' Copagri denounced. Moreover, Copagri president Tommaso Battista had stressed 'the difficulty farmers face in facing the new production campaign without any certainty as to what can or cannot be planted'. The Copagri complaint did not fail to cause alarm in the farming world, which is following this line of research with great attention, from which effective answers are expected to combat climate change and favour the sustainability of agriculture.

"Field experimentation of new Tea varieties is not under discussion and will be not only extended but also incentivised with new funding," Luca De Carlo, president of the Senate's Agriculture and Industry Commission, explained to Il Sole 24 Ore. "The measure will also be extended to 2026 pending the approval of the EU regulation thanks to which the cultivation of ngt1 plants (most of those under experimentation) will no longer be subject to authorisation. We had to withdraw the proposed measure due to doubts raised about its inconsistency with the regulatory vehicle that was supposed to transpose it. That is, the Economy Decree. But the measure, by the time the experimentation expires on 31 December, will certainly be re-proposed in the first useful measure, we do not yet know whether the next agricultural amendment to the last Financial Law or in the next Budget Law'.

President De Carlo also disputes the remarks made by Copagri on the alleged uncertainty for farmers. "This experimentation is not carried out by the farms," De Carlo explains, "but by the world of research and universities. Tea is an option that will be available to farms hopefully soon but certainly not now. So I really don't understand what the uncertainties are'.

Lastly, De Carlo, who is also the first signatory of the withdrawn measure, also provides a sort of 'counter-evidence' that the principle of field experimentation is not in question: 'The government has allocated 9 million euro,' added De Carlo, 'to Crea (the Council for Agricultural Research and Analysis of the Agricultural Economy). This is a clear signal of the executive's desire not only to continue the path of Tea research but also to promote an acceleration on the front of the new Assisted Evolution Techniques'.