Unknown persons destroyed the experimental rice field in the night between Thursday 20th and Friday 21st June Lomellina obtained with assisted evolution techniques (Tea), a project of the University of Milan to reduce the use of fungicides with a view to sustainable agriculture.
Experimental rice
The «RIS8imo» studied by Unimi teachers Vittoria Brambilla And Fabio Fornara, had been sown on the Cascina Erbatici company in Mezzana Bigli (Pavia). “As public scientists – they commented – we express shock and sadness at having suffered unjustified violence, the result of obscurantism and anti-scientific impulses”. Teas are genetic correction techniques that allow modifications of the genome without inserting DNA or other external material (they do not create GMOs) to make a crop more resistant to climate changes and plant diseases. The rice variety being tested was obtained with a technique aimed at inactivating genes responsible for susceptibility to the fungus responsible for the “brusone” disease.
The impact on the project
The project – the two professors specified – had passed all levels of environmental impact assessment of the Ministry of the Environment, of the relevant ISPRA commission and had the approval of the Agriculture Councilor of the Lombardy Region Alessandro Beduschi, who declared: «This criminal act compromises an experiment that we were the first in Italy to start by combining the best scientific expertise». «The destruction of the project, the first of its kind in Italy – he declared the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida — is a significant detriment to agricultural innovation.” «In the name of a misunderstood ecologism – he commented Marco Cappatotreasurer of the Luca Coscioni Association for freedom of scientific research — the authors have destroyed the results of work aimed precisely at reducing the environmental impact of cultivation.”
