CREMONA – The Municipality of Cremonaas the leader of an important system of subjects and institutions, upon decision of the Council, participates in the 2023 tender of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) which expires on 10 June. The project, called Eco-sustainable agro-zootechnical training for greater employment opportunities in Tunisia – ZAFIT, builds a relationship between Cremona, Italy and the Silian region of Tunisia and is aimed at contributing to increasing the competitiveness and entrepreneurship of livestock operators in the area Tunisia, combining innovation and tradition, strengthening technical and professional skills, with the general objective of increasing the possibilities of decent employment and creating added value to the Tunisian economy for eco-sustainable livestock farming.
Cremona offers its internationally recognized technical, entrepreneurial, professional and training skills within the dairy supply chain. It does so thanks to the experience gained by its companies and universities, thanks to the choices made in recent years, such as the birth of the ZAF-IC innovation center which unites businesses, institutions, trade fairs and universities, economic categories and social forces and REI, to build applied research projects, obtain funding, establish international relations.
This project increases the reputation of our territory, inserts Cremona into networks of international projects with the Government of our country, consolidates the system built in recent years and centered on the relationship between universities and businesses and opens up the possibility of other collaborations that unite Cremona with important Mediterranean centers, such as the CIHEAM (Centre International de Hautes Etudes Agronomiques Méditerranéennes) of Bari with which the current project is built. The expected duration is 36 months with a total cost of 1,899,250.00 euros, for which a contribution to AICS of 1,804,287.50 euros is required, equal to 95% of the total cost.
Project partners are: the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, the Polytechnic of Milan, Cremonafiere SpA, the Province of Cremona, the Chamber of Commerce of Cremona, REI – Reindustria Innovazione S.cons.rl (all already involved in the development of the ZAF Innovation Center, Center for Agro-Livestock Food Innovation), the CRIT – Cremona Information Technology Soc. Cons. a rl, Anci Lombardia, Libera Associazione Agricoltori Cremonesi, CIHEAM Bari, Gouvernorat de la région de Siliana, Commissariats régionaux au développement agricultural – CRDA, Institution de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur Agricoles (IRESA) – Office Elevage et pâturage, Union Tunisienne de l’Agriculture et de la Pêche (UTAP).
The project is aimed at contributing to increasing the competitiveness and entrepreneurship of livestock operators by combining innovation and tradition, strengthening technical and professional skills. Technical education and professional training are priority areas of intervention, with the aim of training young people capable of responding to the demand of the local labor market, higher education and university cooperation. The proposal is aimed, as a priority, at farming families, with attention to young people and women, who will be privileged recipients of training and technical assistance activities. The project proposal also includes the involvement and training of operators and institutional technicians in data collection practices (zootechnical, agronomic, climatic) and in monitoring for the evaluation of environmental impacts and to encourage eco-sustainable growth in the livestock sector. Also in this way Cremona consolidates its system, developing through international networks and innovative projects.
