“Fivi4Future”, the Fivi sustainability project starts by fighting the use of pesticides in vineyards

Embracing the objectives of the strategy “Farm to Fork”, the ten-year plan developed by the European Community to guide the transition to a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system, for the vineyard of tomorrow, which will have to focus on environmental sustainability and biodiversity protection: this is “Fivi4Future - Vintners cultivate research”, the initiative of the Federazione Italiana Vignaioli Indipendenti (Fivi), which focuses on the first objective, the reduction of 50% of the use of pesticides by 2030. Through a research project in collaboration with the consulting company Perleuve of the agronomist Giovanni Bigot (the author of the Bigot index, which measures the quality of a vineyard) and with the University of Udine, which aims to increase the biodiversity of vineyards through the progressive elimination of synthetic insecticides, the reduction of biological insecticides and the monitoring of beneficial organisms.

The project, lasting 3 years, includes as a first phase the monitoring of phytophages and their antagonists in the vineyard. The information collected are then shared through the app “4Grapes” by the individual companies, and are useful to map at national level the presence of the main arthropods harmful to the vine, mites and useful insects, to identify the intervention strategies with less impact and to create the basis for a national system of data sharing between the winemakers of the Federation, that in these first 4 months of activity have joined this action, performing 3,912 surveys on 277 vineyards, checking a total of 61,657 organisms. In addition to halving the use of phytosanitary products, further reducing those most harmful for the environment and human health, the European Union has identified in the “Farm to Fork” program three other fundamental objectives: to reduce by 50% the loss of substances in the soil and by 20% the use of fertilizers; to reduce by 50% the sales of antimicrobials for breeding and antibiotics for aquaculture, decreasing the risks due to antibiotic resistance; to allocate 25% of agricultural land to organic farming.
“Fivi4Future wants to be a wide-ranging project: a sort of container of many actions, of which this one on the reduction of insecticides is only the first - explains Gaetano Morella, vice-president of Fivi (Vignaioli Indipendenti) - In this case, the data collected will give us a picture of the situation throughout the country, giving wineries the ability to understand if, how and when to intervene in the best way. A research project promoted by the Vignaioli for the Vignaioli themselves, thanks to the collaboration of high-profile scientific partners. The objective of the entire project”, Morella concludes, “is to train members so that they can consciously and responsibly experience the transition of agriculture towards increasingly sustainable practices”.