The Lombardy Region harshly comments on the devastation of the experimental Tea rice field, hosted at the Cascina Erbatici company in Mezzana Bigli (PV). The regional councilor for Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Alessandro Beduschi, aimed to make Lombardy the first region cultivated with Tea (Assisted Evolution Techniques). The latter, thanks to genetic improvement (non-GMO), allows us to obtain plants that are more resistant to diseases and more suitable to deal with the effects of climate change, reducing the use of pesticides and pesticides and rationalizing the use of water.
CRIMINALS AND NOT VANDALS AGAINST THE TEA
«We are not talking – comments Beduschi – about an act of vandalism. This is a criminal act, which compromises an experiment that we were the first in Italy to launch with a significant political effort and by combining the best scientific expertise on the subject. There are no comments to condemn the gesture of those who, thinking of destroying a small 28 square meter field, blocked years of studies that could finally be applied in concrete terms.”
«Having said that obviously this uncivilized gesture will not stop us – continues councilor Beduschi – it is clear that the relevant complaints will be presented immediately so that we can clarify what happened».
THE UNIVERSITY SPEAKS
«We are witnessing – adds Maria Pia Abbracchio, Vice Rector of the University of Milan with responsibility for the coordination and promotion of research – a resurgence of obscurantist and anti-scientific violence. Violence that as a State University we have no intention of tolerating. This episode causes incalculable damage not only to the researcher involved, not only to her project, but to the entire scientific community. The citizens who are the primary stakeholders in the work carried out by our university are also involved. The work of our scientists, their goal of developing more sustainable cultivation for the benefit of all will resume and continue with even greater conviction and commitment.”
BRAMBILLA SPEAKS
«The RIS8imo experimental field – conclude Vittoria Brambilla and Fabio Fornara, professors at the University of Milan and responsible for the research – had been developed with Assisted Evolution Techniques (TEA) at the State University of Milan, with the aim of contribute to reducing the use of fungicides, with a view to sustainable and quality agriculture, an innovation necessary to face the challenges of agriculture today and tomorrow. As public scientists we express shock and sadness at having suffered unjustified violence, the result of obscurantism and anti-scientific impulses.”
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