Agriculture – Progress in Research

Agriculture: changing animal feed reduces consumption of natural resources

Posted on 26/01/202406/08/2024 by Erik Franco

A study published on the cover of Nature Food, the result of a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and the University of Milan, highlights how the increased use of by-products in the feed sector (secondary products derived from the processing of primary crops such as cereals and sugar) in a circular perspective can lead to significant savings in the use of land and water resources and thus to more sustainable agri-food systems.

Underlying the work, signed by Camilla Govoni and Maria Cristina Rulli from Politecnico di Milano, Paolo D’Odorico from University of California at Berkeley and Luciano Pinotti from University of Milan, there is a thorough analysis and a search for strategies to reduce both the competition for natural resources between animal and human food production, and the unsustainable use of natural resources.

Not only does the use of agricultural by-products in animal diets decrease competition between sectors and pressure on resources, but it would also increase the availability of calories that can be directly earmarked for the human diet (eg cereals); if the saved resources are used for other purposes, including the production of plant foods lacking in current diets, it would improve food security in several countries, with healthier as well as more sustainable food choices
Camilla Govoni, researcher at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The study shows that an 11-16% substitution of energy-intensive crops currently used as animal feed (eg cereals) with agricultural by-products (eg cereal bran, sugar beet pulp, molasses, distillery residues and citrus pulp) would save approximately between 15.4 and 27.8 million hectares of soil, between 3 and 19.6 km³ and between 74.2 and 137.8 km³ of irrigation and rainwater.

The inter-sectoral decrease in the demand for cereals is of particular relevance at a time when the supply of these crops is facing serious shortages due to the combination of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, the residual effects on the food supply of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a drop in harvests caused by increasingly frequent extreme events such as floods, droughts and heat waves induced by climate change.
Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology and Coordinator of the Glob3ScienCE Lab

The study online

Disegno di Laura Capellini

ACRE, agricultural robots to contribute to the sustainability of the sector

Posted on 26/06/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Politecnico di Milano took part in the second edition of ACRE (Agri-food Competition for Robot Evaluation), a competition dedicated to agricultural robots, which took place in Cornaredo (MI) at the ‘Cascina Baciocca’ experimental farm of the University of Milan.

This edition of ACRE was dedicated to robots designed for the weeding of open-field crops, an area in which exploiting this type of machine, even in a low-cost version, could bring great environmental, social and economic benefits by providing an alternative to the use of chemicals.

The competition involved robots built both by start-ups connected in various ways to academia and developing advanced robotic solutions and by companies already offering engineered products on the market. The performances were evaluated according to strict scientific criteria predefined by the organisers with the aim to measure the performance of all participants in an objective and repeatable manner.

ACRE’s main goal is to bring the world of agricultural machinery industry closer to the world of expert researchers in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, in order to also create solid partnerships that in the near future will allow bridging the existing agricultural robotics gap between the European industry and that of the United States – and similarly between the Italian industry and that of various European realities such as the Netherlands and France.

ACRE is funded by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 ‘METRICS’ project, with the primary aim of increasing the spread of robots and artificial intelligence techniques in agriculture. The competition is organised on the Italian side by AIRlab, the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics laboratory of Politecnico di Milano, and by the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences of the University of Milan, with the collaboration of FederUnacoma and Informatore Agrario.

Ritessere: silk by-product reborn into new materials

Posted on 01/05/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The RETESSERE (Silk Sericin materials from textile industry by-products) project has kicked off, funded by the Fondazione Cariplo. It aims to use the by-product from the treatment of raw silk, sericin, for the production of new materials and devices in the field of life sciences.

RITESSERE will evaluate new technologies which, starting from the sericin obtained from raw material of Italian origin with traceability certification (cocoon or raw silk), will lead to the obtainment of both two-dimensional electrospun matrices composed only of sericin, and new materials based on specifically modified sericin. These products will be characterized from a chemical-physical and morphological point of view, and the impact of their introduction on the textile industry market and on other high-tech sectors will be analysed.

In particular, the advantages of the circular approach will be demonstrated through three actions:

• sericin-based facial masks for the cosmetic industry

• three-dimensional scaffolds of sericin for cell culture

• modified sericin-based film for the packaging industry.

RITESSERE aims to demonstrate how sericin can be systematically recovered and used to produce high-tech materials. Starting from silk of Italian origin, RITESSERE will define and optimize a technological process aimed at giving nobility to this waste product, proposing a new sustainable and circular method for the silk production cycle.

The results of the project will also be conveyed and made available through continuous interaction with the Advisory Board, made up of players with a driving role in the silk industry, in the definition of new circular economy practices and in the involvement of civil society (Associazione Costruttori Italiani di Macchinario per l’Industria Tessile, Donne in Campo, Ufficio Italiano Seta, MADE-Competence Center Industria 4.0, Rigano Laboratories, Associazione per il Museo della Seta di Como).

The three-year project RITESSERE is a project funded by Fondazione Cariplo with the Economia Circolare – Promuovere ricerca per un futuro sostenibile program, and is led by Professor Simone Vesentini of the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering and by professors Paolo Rosa and Sergio Terzi of the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano.

Partners in the project, coordinated by our university, are Università degli Studi Milano Bicocca and Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l’analisi dell’economia agraria (Council for Agricultural Research and Agricultural Economics Analysis).

The RITESSERE project has received funding from Fondazione Cariplo, grant n° 2022-0529

The hidden role of food in urban conflicts in Central America

Posted on 07/04/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Extreme water events affect human security, starting from alimentation. In a research article published in the prestigious journal Nature Water researchers from Politecnico di Milano and University of California at Berkeley delve deeper into the complex nexus between droughts and conflicts in Central America.

For the decades from 1996 to 2016, researchers explored how water availability affected agricultural production and food security, and investigated the nexus between drought-induced food insecurity and the emergence of conflict in the region.

Cities in Central America are known for their high rates of homicides and urban violence linked to the proliferation of young street gangs known as maras. Moreover, the rural communities are threatened by the canícula, a dry season occurring in July and August, and its severe impacts on agriculture, which constitutes the main source of food supply and income.

For the first time, in our study we explicitly consider food security as a central mechanism in the chain linking drought-induced water shortage and conflict. We also analyze how the internal food trade can influence the level of food security from food-producing areas to food-consuming areas, such as cities.
Martina Sardo, PhD Student at Politecnico di Milano and lead author

The study offers insight into how climate and water availability can interact with human well-being and social unrest through food security. It also shows the importance of strengthening the resilience of rural communities in the developing world to prevent the rise of social tension.

Decreases in availability and access to water and food play a major role in conflict insurgences, while the stable conditions of peace are more influenced by favorable socio-economic conditions. Furthermore, conflicts in a given place can also be influenced by water scarcity conditions in distant places, which explains how the internal food trade can strengthen and spatially expand the water-food-conflict nexus.
Professor Maria Cristina Rulli, senior author of the article and coordinator of Glob3ScienCE

The war in Ukraine may trigger land investment rush

Posted on 09/03/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

One year after the start of the war in Ukraine, researchers Maria Cristina Rulli of the Politecnico di Milano, Jampel Dell’Angelo of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and Paolo D’Odorico of the University of California at Berkeley, publish in the prestigious Science journal an analysis the potential impact of the invasion on agriculture and rural livelihoods in developing countries.

In previous global food supply crises, spikes in food and energy prices were followed by new waves of transnational land investment and land grabbing.

The authors provide a detailed analysis of the factors that have been identified as drivers or precursors of the “land races” occurred in the 21st century – such as the food supply crisis in periods of increased demand for agricultural products, the demand for renewable energy or the need for diversification of financial investments – to draw a parallel with current conditions.

After 2008, in the aftermath of the global financial and food crisis, there was a notable increase in land investments with large-scale land acquisitions.

explains Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology at our university.

Large-scale land acquisitions often target forest land that is subsequently ‘developed’ through logging, leading to habitat destruction, increased greenhouse gas emissions and loss of access to ancestral land by local people who historically relied on these forests for firewood, food or shelter.

The analysis reflects on the policy implications of the agrarian transition associated with this new wave of land acquisitions, reminding us that the policy frameworks currently in place have historically been ineffective in preventing the previous land rush and its detrimental impacts on livelihoods and the environment.

Read the study online

PALIMPSEST – Creative Drivers for Sustainable Heritage Landscapes

Posted on 21/02/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano continues to affirm its leading role in European research with new projects in the context of the New European Bauhaus initiative, launched by the European Union to spread the culture of the European Green Deal among citizens.

PALIMPSEST activities are coordinated by the group of prof. Grazia Concilio of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies.

Inspired by the idea that territories are “palimpsests” shaped by the stratification of projects and practices that have acted on the natural environment, the project looks at landscapes that make this stratification visible, focusing in particular on three agricultural and urban landscapes called to face significant environmental and climatic challenges.

PALIMPSEST, whose activities will be carried out in Milan, Jerez de la Frontera and Lodz, aims to reconnect to a lost “wisdom” by triggering co-creation processes in which architecture, design and artistic practices are in dialogue with technical-scientific knowledge, specific needs of places and the great systemic challenges, to imagine new scenarios and experiment with innovative practices capable of combining human actions, landscape heritage and sustainability goals.

New model of agriculture and competition for water resources

Posted on 02/02/202206/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The ongoing agrarian transformation towards large-scale commercial agriculture often pursues the goal of increasing agricultural production through the expansion of irrigation. A study by Politecnico di Milano, published in Nature Communications, investigates how transnational Large Scale Land Acquisitions (LSLA), which play a major role in this process, can influence competition for water resources at the local scale.

Conducted in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Notre Dame, the Colorado State University, the University of Delaware and the Vrije Univeristeit in Amsterdam, the study combines hydrological and crop modelling, agricultural statistics and geo-referenced information on individual transnational LSLAs to assess the emergence of water scarcity associated with them.

The study found that competition for water has been exacerbated, to the detriment of local communities, for 105 of the 160 LSLAs considered (67% of the land acquired). On the one hand, the land of interest to investors is precisely that with preferential access to surface water and groundwater resources, and on the other hand, it was found that these agricultural investments have often been the premise for the planting of water-intensive crops and the expansion of irrigated crops.

Combining the growing demand for water with limited water resources is a key challenge for sustainable development,

comments Maria Cristina Rulli, Professor of Hydrology at Politecnico di Milano.

The use of water resources for agricultural production in large-scale land acquisitions can generate hydrological and social consequences for local users. To date, there have been only a few timid attempts to regulate, mainly on a voluntary basis, large-scale agricultural land acquisitions in the Global South and, unfortunately, recent progress in understanding the water dimension of these acquisitions has not yet been translated into a water governance perspective that takes into account any hydrological constraints, the need for water to ensure rural livelihoods, and environmental law.

The ESPERA project serving the production of PGI Mantua pears

Posted on 29/09/202106/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The Politecnico di Milano coordinates the project called ESPERA – Economia circolare e sostenibilità della filiera della pera IGP del Mantovano (Circular economy and sustainability of the production of PGI Mantua pears). Initiated last June, this three-year project is financed by the Lombardy Regional Government.

Principal investigator is Prof. Alessandro Torricelli from our Department of Physics. Participants in the study include our Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, the Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies at the CNR, the Research Centre for Engineering and Agro-Food Processing at the CREA, and the Università degli Studi di Milano.

The overall goal of the project is to improve the management of the production chain of PGI Mantua pears using a technical and scientific approach based on recent concepts of innovation, collaboration, and circularity as ingredients in a sustainable agriculture system.

The project is characterised by its particular innovative features, which relate to various aspects.

Technological innovation: the use of a multidisciplinary approach that combines a new optical technique (picosecond laser spectroscopy in the near infrared) with an innovative model of kinetics to mature the fruit (biological age) in order to define the ripening indicators to use for selection when the fruit is harvested.

Product and process innovation: recovering scraps through a combined approach entailing the use of fruit with diseases or defects to produce dried rounds of pear — a new product with high nutritional value that extends the remaining life — and using the scraps from producing the rounds to extract nutrient-rich compost.

Business model innovation: The goal of the project is to advance knowledge and demonstrate the feasibility and sustainability of innovative models of the circular economy as applied to the Mantua pear production chain, and the Italian fruit and vegetable industry in general. This entails the development and experimentation of integrated technological solutions and the contextual redesign of management and logistics processes, thereby reconfiguring the production chain to manage food excess and waste.

The project will be carried out in external collaboration with Cooperativa Ortofrutticola, the direct beneficiary of the results. Through this, cultivars and fruit will be selected and existing processes in the production chain will be studied to find solutions to reduce waste, enhance the products, and increase the sustainability of the entire production system. The results of the project will also be transferred to indirect beneficiaries.

Entrapment and recycle of pesticides in agricultural activities

Posted on 28/06/202111/10/2021 by admin

Tag: Agriculture, fresh water, contamination, pollution, food technology
Researcher: Alberto Guadagnini
Department: DICA – Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Pesticides adopted in agriculture can easily raise environmental concerns, as they can often be a cause of contamination of nearby surface waters. This can cause irreversible damage to the ecosystem and to water quality. The accumulation of pesticides in water is one of the main causes of eutrophication, a phenomenon that causes changes in biodiversity and ecosystem functions of clean water. Sediments analysis of fresh waters have proven that change in nutrients and mineral salts can cause permanent damages to freshwater reserves, an increasingly scarce and vital resource.

RECYCLE, a EU funded project has the objective of developing methodologies and technologies to trap pesticides used in agricultural work and recycle them, protecting the environment as well as being in line with the principles of a circular economy. Researchers aim to develop new technologies in order to trap pesticides residue from drained land and sediments and make them available for agricultural purposes avoiding contamination.

RECYCLE program has been chosen in 2019 under the H2020 scheme, MSCA-RISE — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange — and will have an expected duration of four years. The project involves eight other participant universities — other than Politecnico di Milano — and four partner institutions, with an overall budget of € 1,347,800.

Within the scheme of the MSCA-RISE, the project will stimulate knowledge exchange, and foster collaboration between the institutions involved in the program, through seminars and workshops, as well as the joint effort of members from the private sector and other stakeholders.