Farmers' alarm: parliament blocks trials of climate shock-resistant crops
Unexpected withdrawal in the Senate Budget Committee of an amendment to the Ddl converting the so-called 'Dl Economia' that was supposed to extend the field trials of new Tea varieties, i.e. the result of Assisted Evolution Techniques
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Key points
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Agricultural obscurantism manifests itself in various forms. Often with attacks and the destruction of experimental fields as has happened in recent months with new rice varieties in the Oltrepò pavese or vineyards planted with 'resistant' cultivars in Veneto. Other times, however, all it takes is a loophole or a snag in parliamentary work.
Belonging precisely to the latter category is the unexpected withdrawal in the Senate Budget Commission of an amendment to the Ddl converting the so-called 'Dl Economia', which was supposed to extend the field trials of the new Tea varieties, i.e. the result of Assisted Evolution Techniques.
Cultivars resistant to water stress
.These are new cultivars that are resistant to water stresses (such as prolonged drought) made more frequent with climate change or to increasingly widespread plant diseases (minimising recourse to defence with chemical and synthetic products). Varieties that are in no way to be confused with the much disputed GMOs, because they are the result of techniques that merely accelerate in the laboratory the search for the most suitable types of plant in the various agricultural productions. A process that farmers have always carried out empirically over the centuries through selection and field trials.
Copagri's alarm
.The alarm was raised by Copagri, which denounced the risks linked to the lack of extension. "The possible stop to the field trials of Assisted Evolution Techniques (ATEA), currently allowed until the end of 2025, is a cold shower for the entire agricultural sector and the world of research, which have long since resolutely taken the path of innovation and genetic improvement, fundamental conditions for increasing agriculture's resistance to parasites, allowing the plant genome to adapt with less stress to the increasingly frequent effects of climate change,' commented Copagri president Tommaso Battista.
"Allowing research activities in agriculture to be carried out at authorised experimental sites," Battista added, "with the ultimate aim of obtaining plant productions capable of responding adequately to water shortages and environmental and biotic stresses of particular intensity, is a key condition for achieving the much-vaunted green revolution, while also aiming to increase production and use fewer fuels, fertilisers and pesticides.
