Looking for the seed...” right!”

Interesting training event for the members of our cooperative who have met at our associated company “BioArmonia” of the Patt family. The subject of the meeting is the topic of seeds, very current, and the search by the Cooperative for interlocutors who place at the center of their interest the recovery of ancient varieties, the production of Open Pollinated seeds (with open pollination) and therefore not hybrid and certainly not GMOs. The morning was validly conducted by our agronomist Davide Tromballi who presented Federica Bigongiali and Antonio Lo Fiego, from the organic seed companies Sativa and Arcoiris respectively.

The strong theme is the need to decline organic agriculture that values, and is in turn enhanced, seeds that are not artificially hybridized for exclusively productive purposes, recovering local varieties, which have instead naturally developed phytosanitary resistance, taste and quality in relation to the territory where they originate.

This is certainly not a detail, considering also the new climatic conditions in which we find ourselves, and which also force plants to develop forms of adaptation and self-selection.

In BioArmonia, selections from both companies present are already being cultivated, with results that are often good for some varieties (fennel, rave herbs of various types, green chard), other times less good (radicchio, cappucci), without prejudice to a really bad spring 2021 in terms of climate and weather.

In other companies associated with the Cooperative, especially small or very small, similar experiences are being conducted, to which we will have to give further impetus and dedicate much more time and attention to it.

Once again, it has been concluded that it is necessary to work together more and more between those who produce, those who select, those who sell and those who buy, to affirm the need and the value of truly sustainable organic agriculture and that is not reduced to “substitute” methods for conventional.

Obviously, it will be essential to find the most suitable ways to communicate to the final buyer the advantages of consuming products from native and local plants.