L.A.ME.T.A. Consulting Ets Association on April 27, 2023 is organizing the new event titled: "Festival & Round Table, Sustainability Resilience and Breeding."
The April 27, 2023 Basilicata Strawberry Festival & Roundtable Day opens the two-day strawberry festival to be held in Scanzano Jonico on April 29 and 30 organized by the organizing committee.
The first day will conclude with a panel discussion in which experts in the field will participate as speakers and discuss the production and market trends of the Basilicata strawberry and the status of the application process for the attribution of the IGP-Protected Geographical Indication trademark to the Basilicata strawberry.
Speaking about the event, Berardino Marchitelli, president of L.A.ME.T.A. Consulting, spoke exclusively with Italian Berry:
From what needs does the meeting arise?
"The Technical Training Day was born from the desire to create a situation of comparison between two different aspects: the technical and the entrepreneurial. Given the excellence of the product, the confrontation between technicians and entrepreneurs allows to compare the current situation of Basilicata's Strawberry, a unique product with a high standard and characterized by innovative techniques and processes."
What are the values behind a product like the Basilicata Strawberry?
"The Basilicata Strawberry is developed on a concept of agriculture 4.0, eco-sustainable and also very attentive to consumer needs, discourse moreover linked to the Farm to Fork policies that we will discuss at the meeting with all participants. During the round table we will discuss precisely this: together with sector experts and companies we will try to trace the state of the art of the Basilicata Strawberry, a discourse moreover linked to the application for the PGI label."
What are the topics that will be addressed during the panel discussion?
"During the panel discussion, the critical issues in the sector will not be highlighted so much as the aspects and success stories that have led so many companies to excellence with a product like the Basilicata Strawberry. The topics covered will be many, but at the center will be innovation. Every day new uses for microorganisms, new useful insects, new antagonisms, new techniques are discovered. These aspects, together with environmentally sustainable and 4.0 agriculture can really give momentum to zero residue."
"The panel discussion then will conclude with a strawberry tasting in all its variations, but it will be just a small taste that will continue in the following days with the Scanzano Strawberry Festival, organized by the parish and the promotion committee. This is to make people taste and understand the uniqueness of the product we bring to consumers. We are not talking about strawberries in their simplicity, but a real food and wine experience: from risottos to pasta, from desserts to ice cream. The goal is to show how the Basilicata strawberry is unique, regardless of declination."
The Technical Training Day will begin on April 27 at 3:30 p.m. at Az. Nicofruit, located near the traffic circle exit ss 106 exit San Teodoro Argonauti in Pisticci locality, where strawberry fields conducted with integrated pest management techniques, the use of beneficial insects, rationalizing the use of fertilizers and irrigation with cutting-edge technologies with Agriculture 4.0 model by Demetrio Nicodemo will be visited.
They will then discuss varieties, integrated production, zero residue, the use of beneficial insects, water and nutritional savings, Farm to Fork strategy, new implementations for Agriculture 4.0, biostimulants and resistance inducers of natural origin, microorganisms, integrated pest management protocols, and other more modern technical/scientific aspects related to strawberry cultivation.
In addition, fields with strawberry varieties from Elpinar Nursery, the day's main sponsor, will be visited by Silvio Paraggio. There will also be a visit to the fields of az. Lascaro Graziano, an Apofruit member, where eco-sustainable strawberries will be discussed by Andrea Grassi and Raffaello Tita. Then there will be a display of integrated pest management and zero residue protocols by the sponsoring plant protection companies.
At 6 p.m., the day will continue at the Hotel Miceneo in Scanzano after greetings from Ass. L.A.ME.T.A. consulting secretary Alfredo Carullo and the President of the Order of Dr. Agronomists and Dr. Foresters of the Prov. of Matera Domenico Laviola.
The pomological exhibition, which will cover the different strawberry cultivars that fall under the national varietal list program, will be opened, and speeches will be given by various experts in the field including researchers and professors, such as Prof. Gianfranco Romanazzi from the Marche Polytechnic University, Prof. Bartolomeo Dichio and Dr. Alba Mannini from the University of Basilicata. Also present will be Carmelo Mennone of Alsia in Pantanello, who will explain the production behavior of strawberry varieties in Basilicata. The first part of the evening will be moderated by Past President of Ass. ARPTRA .
At 7:30 p.m. a round table discussion will begin, moderated by journalist Filippo Radogna, titled "Basilicata's Strawberry and PGI State of the Art between Production and Market," where major industry experts such as Filippo Corbo of Basilicata Region, Salvatore Pecchia, Pres. of Basilicata's Strawberry Promoting Committee, Giovanni Mondani and Carmelo Sigliuzzo of Check Fruit, Mirco Zanelli, Dir. Commerciale of Apofruit Italia and Andrea Badursi, Pres. Op Assofruit Italia will participate.
At the end of the evening the meeting will continue with a dinner hosted by the sponsors.
The event was met with great interest online by technicians and practitioners and it was possible to organize the technical-scientific meeting thanks to collaborations with the AIPP Association, the Association of ARPTRA Technicians, the Polytechnic University of Marche, the University of Basilicata, and the ASF - Biagio Mattatelli Association, along with the sponsorship of the ORDER of Agronomists and Foresters of the Province of Matera.
