My internship has involved three main tasks: a farm knowledge tool description; support and research for a grant proposal, and hands-on fieldwork with a Participatory Plant Breeding (PPB) LIVESEED tomato project located in Rome.
The farm knowledge description tool consisted of gathering reports on traditional farming practices throughout the Mediterranean. These reports were then translated into English and logged in a consistent format for ease of distribution. The second phase focused on a grant proposal for Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA). PRIMA funds social and environmental innovation in the agro-food systems based in the Mediterranean. Work consisted of hands-on involvement with writing and review of the grant. The last phase, and majority of the internship, consisted of field work on a Participatory Plant Breeding tomato seed farm in partnership with the Regional Agency for the Development and Innovation of Agriculture in the Lazio Region. Fieldwork involved each step of the tomato breeding process, from planting to harvesting and drying seeds, and concluded by testing a Participatory Plant Breeding monitoring app for potential use in the following years.
The internship has been a great experience. Farming is not nearly as simple as we perceive it to be and farmers deserve far more credit than they receive for the important and challenging work they do on a daily basis.
Ted Tomao (MA Food Studies student)
Reti Semi Rurali - overview
The Reti Semi Rurali network and the 34 organizations that are part of it, as per its statute, support, facilitate and promote contact, dialogue, exchange and sharing of information and initiatives between those who affirm the values of diversity and oppose what generates erosion and loss of diversity, as mining agriculture relies on intensive monocultures.
Le Rete promotes collective management of agro-biodiversity, which is strategic for achieving the ecological transition of our economic and production model. The Network works to achieve a diversification of our agricultural systems, starting from seeds to diets, through processing and distribution. Only greater diversification will allow us to have healthy and sustainable agricultural and food systems in the near future.