There were at least eighty at the Boschi Celati farmhouse in Fossadello di Caorso for the first appointment, Friday 12 April, of A Cena Con La Scienza. Academics, fond of the initiative, but also many who came especially for him: Tommaso Maggiore. “If he worked in another field we could define him as a star – said Michele Lodigiani, coordinator of the initiative, introducing him – in agronomy it is difficult to reach large audiences, we can certainly say that Professor Maggiore is a point of reference known and appreciated by all those who operate in the sector”. “Retired professor – he himself was keen to underline – not “already a professor” because I still am a professor, even if retired”. His career is difficult to summarize: teacher, researcher, academic, long-time agronomist; he bewitched those present with an acute and brilliant presentation, retracing the transformation of agriculture and its link with the CAP from the 1960s to the present day, drawing up a balance sheet and an assessment of the impacts of political choices on the CAP itself and on developments of the primary sector. A reflection to understand why the needle of science and that of politics often point in different directions.
From Farm to Fork, to damming rivers, to planting trees when forests are increasing: as a true liberal as he declared himself, Maggiore highlighted the contradictions of the ideological attack on productivity perpetrated by a policy that does not listen to science and the damage that result. “There is nothing that absorbs Co2 more than a corn plant – he said – and yet they tell us that we have to reduce the corn areas when in 20 years they have more than halved with the result that we import it”. There were some jabs at the “natural is beautiful and good” narrative. His was not just a complaint, with his 60 years of teaching, he also outlined a solution. “Agriculture – he said – in order to be productive, respectful of the environment and modern, following the physiological process of concentration and specialization of companies, must become an agroecosystem at a territorial level. If once a small company constituted a balanced universe, now it is necessary for this balance to be achieved at a local level with agreements and synergies between companies that are larger and highly specialized”.
“Once the controversy has passed, the problems remain: all the scientific inconsistencies of the CAP” is the title of his report on which, in closing, the president of Confagricoltura Piacenza, Filippo Gasparini, also intervened, answering a question from the public: “Why does everything the professor described happen?”
“No one at the political tables or even in the ranks of the street protests – said Gasparini – has made the lucid summary that the professor presented to us this evening. He protests about the effects, without analyzing the causes. For the first time in history, technology and science have outclassed the humanistic aspects, we are in a period of decadence which lacks vision and even the comparison of ideals. The funds and finance that govern politics win, which in the end does not listen to science, but to finance and the masses, skillfully moved with a thought that is decadent and superficial.”
The debate followed at the table with the excellent cuisine of the farmhouse was inevitable and appreciated.
“Five things that are better to know” is this year’s title of the cycle of scientific debate and dissemination events organized by Confagricoltura Piacenza and Agriturist, now in its fifteenth edition.
Other events on the calendar:
- Friday 10 May – 7.00 pm What you know about plastic is wrong
Speaker: SIMONE ANGIONI – Teacher at the master’s degree in science communication at San Raffaele University and of the “Scrivere di Scienza” course for Feltrinelli Education.
Agriturismo Cascina Pizzavacca (Soarza di Villanova Sull’Arda)
- Friday 14 June – 7.00 pm Little Geniuses – discovering microorganisms
Speaker: STEFANO BERTACCHI – Industrial Biotechnologist and PhD at the University of Milan – Bicocca
Agriturismo La Rondanina (Castelnuovo Fogliani)
- Friday 5 July – 7.00 pm The social brain
Speaker: FRANCESCO PAPALEO – Researcher at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa
Agriturismo Il Chapter (Carpaneto Piacentino)
- Friday 20 September – 7pm.00 I miss the ground under my feet!! Land consumption in Italy
Speaker: MICHELE MUNAFO’ – Editor of the ISPRA report on land consumption
Agriturismo Battibue (Fiorenzuola d’Arda)
Tags: Confagricoltura Piacenza Dinner Science opens Tommaso Maggiore
