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The Italian Federation of Independent Winegrowers (Fivi) wants to reduce the use of plant protection products by 50 percent by 2030. The adopted target is a building block of the EU's "Farm to Fork Strategy", which aims to ensure a sustainable and economically viable agriculture and food sector. To this end, the project "Fivi4Future" was launched, which is being implemented in cooperation with the consulting firm Perleuve of agronomist Giovanni Bigot and the University of Udine. Bigot is the inventor of the Bigot Index, which measures the quality of a vineyard(see also the interview with Giovanni Bigot in wein.plus magazine). Thanks to the measures, the biodiversity in the vineyards is to be increased through the gradual abandonment of synthetic insecticides as well as the reduction of biological insecticides.
The first phase of the three-year project involves monitoring phytophages and their antagonists in the vineyard. The information collected will then be shared by individual vineyards via the "4Grapes" app and will be used to map the presence of key arthropods, mites and beneficial insects at a national level, identify lower-impact intervention strategies and provide the basis for a national data-sharing system among growers in the association.
"Fivi4Future" is intended to be a comprehensive project, of which the reduction of insecticides is only the first measure," explains Gaetano Morella, vice president of the Fivi association.
(ru / Source: winenews; Photo: pixabay)