The circular economy as a model of virtuous economic development for policies aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the agri-food chain. This was the theme of the conference held on 19 February at Palazzo Malvezzi.
Metropolitan City of Bologna organized this interregional event as a consequence of its participation in the European project SinCE-AFC aimed at involving SMEs of the agri-food chain in circular economy through the promotion of the appropriate managing and financial horizontal mechanisms.
These transnational meeting was divided in two sessions.
The first session was marked by two main speeches held, respectively, by IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) Europe's delegate Antonio Compagnoni and by the Coordinator of the Milan Food Policy inside the Mayor’s Office Andrea Magarini Pellini.
Campagnoni underlined the growth of organic agriculture in Italy and in particular in Emilia-Romagna, which now represents 15% of the usable agricultural soils (SAU).
As concrete example of how public administration and private sector can best work together to stimulate the circular economy in the agri-food supply chain, Compagnoni also explained an innovative tool for the government of the environmental sustainability of territories jointly managed by organic operators: the Bio-districts.
Magarini Pellini presented some good practices of circular economy in the City of Milan such as, for instance, the "Donation Project" of food surpluses. Food operators can donate their surpluses to non-profit organisations and thus have a 20% reduction in the waste tax.
In the second part, the session on the theme of sharing good practices related to sustainable production, Francesca Cappellaro from ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) introduced the European/Italian Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform.
Moreover, Cappellaro highlighted the advantages of the circular economy in terms of reducing harmful emissions into the atmosphere thanks to the use of eco-innovative products and processes and listed the ENEA's European and national projects.
In this session also spoke: Luca Michieletto of the Humus Network; the SinCE AFC project’s partner representatives, including the Metropolitan City of Bologna, from 7 different countries (Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Romania and Ireland).
Michieletto presented Humus, the social network for Italian bio-agriculture, as a place of rediscovery of the values of the past but at the same time of scientific research aimed at innovation for quality and sustainable agriculture.
Several SinCE AFC project’s partner representatives during their relations underlined how, even if the benefits of the circular economy are well known and acclaimed, often the good practices underlying this model are only applied by large companies that have more resources and means.
Specifically in Italy, although SMEs represent 99% of the entrepreneurial fabric, they still remain on the margins due to a lack of motivation and support. Therefore, especially in our country it is important to improve territorial policies in this sense to stimulate the birth and use of concrete actions of circular economy for all actors in the agri-food chain, from production to processing, from packaging to distribution and up to final consumption.
Improvement of territorial policies that the Metropolitan City of Bologna intends to support also through proactive collaborations with other countries made possible by the outputs of the European project SinCE AFC.
After the meeting SinCE AFC project’s partner representatives carried out a number of study visits on important ongoing practices in the field of innovative approaches to the agri-food sector, which allowed the European partners to acquire in-depth knowledge of these conversion experiences. During the first day, the study visits were organized in the Future Food Institute and in the Granarolo S.p.a. headquarter were Vittorio Zambrini presented the project AgrofoodBIC, a start-up accelerator in the food&beverage and agro-industrial sectors. On the second day, the visits covered the whole metropolitan area of Bologna involving also the Municipality of Sasso Marconi (BO) and the areas of the Bolognese Apennines. This was an opportunity to meet the representatives of the Local Action Group of the Bolognese Apennines (GAL). GAL is a Public Private Limited Liability Consortium that manages resources allocated by Rural Development Programme for Emilia Romagna, involved in a project for the creation of an Bolognese Apennines Bio-District. This project involves many operators in the area including the social agricultural cooperative COpAPS and the Corte d'Aibo wine company, destinations on the same day of two other study visits.
