On March 28, a workshop has been organized at the headquarter of the Polish Association of Organic Fruit Growers in Biała Rawska.
The workshop aimed at presenting and discussing with the producers the method for the assessment and valorisation of ecosystem services that the innovations proposed by the project could provide. Prof. Davide Neri, project Coordinator, opened the workshop with a presentation on the role of the root system in sensing the soil environment and the effect of organic matter from different matrixes on root growth. Dr Patrizia Borsotto from the Centre for Policies and Bioeconomy of CREA presented the proposal for a methodology which will allow to monetize the ecoservices. The array of ecological factors and parameters to be measured are expected to provide the basis to calculate the value of the selected ecoservices, thus giving the organic producers an additional tool in justifying the public support to organic fruit production. The discussion on them underlined the interest from the producers in this tool and the Association agreed to support the project in this task.
