A community among operators engaged in the production, marketing and valorisation of the variety of “Favolosa” extra virgin olive oilthe cultivar that had and has a large part in the rebirth of entire parts of the olive-growing Salento, attacked by xylella.
Getting to know this cultivar closely is the objective of the two days, the 9 and 10 May 2024 in Traniat Palazzo Filisio (in Piazza Duomo), promoted by the Consorzio Oliveti d’Italia and Assoproli Bari and sponsored by the Puglia Region and the Municipality of Trani.
The initiative, presented during a press conference attended by the regional councilor for agricultural policies, Donato Pentassuglia and the President of the Olive Groves of Italy Consortium, Nicola Ruggierowill involve producers, experts, tasters, university professors, researchers from the National Academy of Olive and Oil, the University of Bari and the Irta of Catalonia.
Among the initiatives to spread awareness of this cultivar also the “IL GIOVANE FAVOLOSA – GIUSEPPE FONTANAZZA” AWARD which, from next year, will be reserved for young people who have distinguished themselves for Research, Projects and/or Activities of particular relevance for the improvement and innovation of the olive sector.
The Award will be named after GIUSEPPE FONTANAZZAthe person who created this cultivar and the evaluation of the nominations will be entrusted to the National Academy of Olive Trees and Oil.
“We are committed, almost condemned to innovate and to do so by targeting young people – explained Nicola Ruggiero during the press conference. The award has the task of underlining that olive growing will still be our future only if agricultural companies, and the Puglia system, are able to put together a piece of innovation every day.
This is our institutional task and we want to do it in a logic of national comparison. In Lake Garda – he continued – there are companies that have been producing this variety for over 20 years and have great market success. For the first time since 2023, large-scale retail trade, which also only thinks about the price, has introduced this variety with very attractive prices and the consumer is responding because the taste of this product meets their needs. This is why we need to protect it, innovate it, and give it the image – concluded Ruggiero – of a fresh and young product”.
According to the regional councilor for Agriculture, Donato Pentassuglia, “We shared this approach in a logic of open discussion. This cultivar is giving and has given good results which go in the direction, together with the others, of redefining an olive-growing plan that we will discuss with the EU commission on 20 and 21 June to restore, to the Apulian territory, the devastated half, resistant cultivars that give scenic beauty and economy to companies and the territory”.
