Presentation at AIIA 2024 Conference

Environmental sustainability assessment to drive strawberry breeding: the case of Breeding Value project

Strawberry is a valuable crop produced in the EU, with an upward consumption trend due to its health-promoting and sensory attributes. Thus, to foster sustain-able and competitive production, efforts are underway to develop new cultivars that address the demand for innovative cultivation systems and high-quality produce. This initiative is crucial given the challenges climate change poses and the need for environmental preservation. Although breeding programs predominantly emphasize factors such as yield and overall nutritional quality parameters, there is a gap in their consideration of environmental performance. This gap must be addressed to help the strawberry industry adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices and contribute to global efforts to mitigate climate change.

Using life cycle assessment (LCA), researchers of the BreedingValue coordinating institution Marche Polytechnic University (UPM) are evaluating the environmental performance of strawberry. First results were presented at the AIIA 2024 Conference entitled "Biosystems engineering promoting resilience to climate change".

Almost 300 researchers attended the Mid-Term Conference 2024 of the Italian Association of Agricultural Engineering (AIIA), held at the University of Padova, Italy, from June 17 to 19, 2024.

Further information about the conference is available here.

Presentation of BreedingValue at AIIA 2024 conference

https://aiiapadova2024.com/