<div style="text-align: justify;">Protecting fruit and vegetables crops is quite a complex issue: it involves actors from every point of the different chains, producers organisations and their cooperatives, technicians active in the fields, processing units, distribution, pesticides producers and their retailers, Regional authorities and the Ministry of Agriculture. The European Commission is very committed to guarantee and protect consumers, and from 2014 all European farmers will be obliged to use only integrated pest management.<br>Italy has put in place a "national quality system for productions using integrated pest management", following national rules specifying which active substances can be used. Such rules are, every year, verified and updated. <br>To ease the practical application of ecosustainable crop techniques, and to spread their knowledge, UNPROA (the National Union of fruit and vegetables producers) and Image Line created the site www.disciplinari.it, a web platform dedicated to all the operators, where they will be able to find all the regional rules, check the type of techniques allowed to face any kind of adversities, compare them, and choose products as less harmful as possible for the environment. Labels and security sheets will as well be provided for every product. The system can be downloaded even with iPhones, iPads and Smartphones, updated in real time and connected to the ‘Fitogest’ data-bank.<br><br>Source: UNAPROA </div>
News