AREFLH President Simona Caselli participated to the online conference on "Communication by women from the Italian fruit and vegetable sector". She shared a presentation on the theme of promotion which starts at minute 11 on the video below.
The conference was organised by the Italian association of women of the F&V sector. Le Donne dell'ortofrutta was founded by a group of 30 entrepreneurs and experts from the entire production chain. The main idea of the association is to create a network of professional women to present ideas and projects, organise events, and to become an active communication link in the sector, with that specific feminine touch.
Following the press conference organised by AREFLH on 22nd May, find below the 2020 European peach and nectarine production forecast in English and in French, written by Eric Hostalnou.
Ministers held an exchange of views on the Farm to Fork strategy and the Biodiversity strategy, which were recently adopted by the European Commission. The aim of both strategies is to make EU food systems a global standard for sustainability and to take urgent action to protect and restore Europe's biodiversity.
In particular, ministers exchanged views on the main challenges and opportunities in achieving the strategies' targets. They also discussed the suggested additional measures by the Commission to make the implementation of the future common agricultural policy more efficient in order to help achieve the ambition of the Green Deal. Finally, ministers presented their views on whether the new proposal for the EU budget 2021 - 2027, including the new European Recovery Instrument (“Next Generation EU”), is adequately designed to fulfil the ambition of the Farm to Fork and the Biodiversity strategies.
COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2020/743 of 30 March 2020 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/891 as regards the calculation of the value of marketed production of producer organisations in the fruit and vegetables sector
The amendment below extends addresses the need to provide flexibility in the calculation of the value of marketed production of producer organisations also in cases where they face phytosanitary damage deriving from plant diseases or pest infestations.
‘’Where a reduction of at least 35 % in the value of a product has occurred due to plant diseases or pest infestations falling outside the responsibility and control of the producer organisation, the value of marketed production of that product shall be deemed to represent 85 % of its value in the previous reference period. The producer organisation shall prove to the competent authority of the Member State concerned that it has taken the necessary preventive measures against the plant disease or pest infestation concerned.’’
However, such flexibility in calculation of the value of marketed production will only be available to producer organisations that prove that they have taken the necessary preventive measures against plant diseases and pest infestations (ex. protective nets, pest and disease monitoring, biological pest control and other measures).
Please note that this regulation is not related to the COVID19 flexibility package.
After a legislative journey of almost two years, the new European regulations on water reuse were adopted on May 13. For the first time, minimum quality requirements for recycled water intended for agricultural irrigation are laid down. These were published on June 5 in the Official Journal of the European Union.
With a budget of around 35 million euros co-funded by the European Union, the Internet of Food and Farms project, IoF2020, aims to create a change to significantly improve the productivity and sustainability of agricultural and livestock practices.
Its mission is to demonstrate the added value of using devices of all kinds connected to the Internet, such as sensors, irrigation systems or management software that can be managed and controlled remotely by the various stakeholders in the food chain.
IoF2020 is organised around 5 sectors with the creation of 19 case studies with different themes. The 5 sectors on which the IoF2020 project focuses are those related to fruit, vegetables, extensive herbaceous crops, dairy production and intensive meat farming.
One of the case studies led by the University of Almería and in which the Association COEXPHAL participates, with the support of the Italian certifier ValorItalia, consists of integrating data, models, virtual sensors, predictors and optimisation techniques to generate a decision support tool in tomato production, including aspects of traceability and certification.
The first tests of this technology will be carried out in collaboration with the experimental station Cajamar "Las Palmerillas" and with other commercial farms of Coexphal members.
AREFLH is a partner of NUTRIMAN, a Nitrogen and Phosphorus thematic network compiling knowledge for recovered bio-based fertilizer products, technologies, applications, and practices.
At the moment, Task 2.4 is being launche, it focuses on the evaluation of the reduced list of technologies and products by potential end-users: farmer consultation and identification of incentives and bottlenecks for adoption.
This activity consists of a participatory approach, which involves end users from the start, which will ensure greater availability to adopt the results of the demonstration tests. First, single semi-structured interviews with end users will be conducted by region and by type of agricultural production. These interviews will provide information on the willingness of farmers, growers to adopt practices, products from the shortlist by implementing a behavioral approach, e.g. as in the theory of planned behaviour.
AREFLH invites you to participate directly in the survey by answering the questionnaire available in 8 languages.
AREFLH is a partner of the CONSOLE project – “CONtract SOLutions for Effective and lasting delivery of agri-environmental-climate public goods by EU agriculture and forestry". The project focuses on promoting agriculture and forestry delivery of public Agri-Environmental-Climate Goods (AECPG). Through the development of improved contract solutions.
The difficulty in the provision of public goods relates to the main challenges, such as trade-offs between environmental performance and farm profitability, the time lag between action and impact, and potential mismatch between scales of action and its effects.
Agricultural policy in the European Union (EU) has partially reoriented its objective towards the provision of public goods in rural areas, recognizing current social demands. Also, the legislative proposal for the next CAP programming period envisages following this path. However, the actions aimed at the delivery of AECPG are still considered flimsy in terms of longevity, effectiveness, and efficiency.
Improvements may come from a flexible combination of promising new instruments, such as land tenure systems, results-based payments, or collective approaches, as well as better value chain strategies.
Effective implementation of these solutions requires a consistent multi-level contractual framework that considers the surrounding context variables, such as the union with market goods, price systems, business networks, social capital, the experience of farmers, and EU / national/local framework legislation.
As a comprehensive, innovative and collaborative approach is needed to ensure a systematic update of the provision of AECPG in Europe, CONSOLE boosts its innovation in the durable delivery of AECPG by EU agriculture and forestry, by creating a Community of Practice (CoP), designing and testing effective and efficient cooperation models and developing a contractual framework to support the implementation by multiple actors.
AREFLH is a partner of the project SmartProtect, which is a thematic network focusing on cross-regional knowledge sharing of SMART IPM solutions for farmers and advisors.
The website was officially published on May 21st. It includes all the information related to the project like its aim and objectives, impact, news, description of the partners, contact information, subscription to the newsletter, and a quick link to the platform.
In the upcoming period and as the project progresses the website will be enriched with more features such as the digital platform for sharing information on best practices and tools for Integrated Pest Management in vegetable crops and the events calendar that will inform on important events related with the aims of the project.
For years, the School Fruit, Vegetables and Milk scheme, promoted by the European Union, has been aimed at primary school children to develop a conscious consumption of fruits and vegetables and raise awareness of the benefits of healthy eating, through the creation of specific thematic days in schools and production sites.
But this year, due to school closings to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, programme organisers all over Europe have been forced to cancel the planned initiatives. In Italy, the alternative found was to create a series of online meetings to which primary schools throughout Italy were invited and, in just two days, the 4000 places available were taken.
On June 4 and 5, there were therefore online courses on the importance of the consumption of fruits and vegetables organised by experts from Crea and presented by the most beloved YouTuber of Italian children, LaSabri, who has more than 2 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.
June 12-21: the 16th edition of the French Fruit and Vegetable Festival will take place, organised by Interfel. Find out more (French)
8-10 Septembre :Macfrut 2020 goes digital. Italy’s international showcase for the fresh produce industry will offer business opportunities through a digital platform that will bring together buyers from all over the world, opening up new international markets for the sector. This innovative project makes Macfrut the first digital trade fair for the fruit and vegetable industry. Watch the video. www.macfrut.com
October 20-22: Fruit Attraction in Madrid, confirmed. This year a new digital B2B-eMeeting service will be implemented (video calls of 30 to 45 minutes on a platform available for smartphones and laptops). Read more
October 22: Biofruit congress in Madrid, confirmed Read more.
AREFLH President Simona Caselli participated to the online conference on "Communication by women from the Italian fruit and vegetable sector". She shared a presentation on the theme of promotion which starts at minute 11 on the video below.
Following the press conference organised by AREFLH on 22nd May, find below the 2020 European peach and nectarine production forecast in 
sters held an exchange of views on the Farm to Fork strategy and the Biodiversity strategy, which were recently adopted by the European Commission. The aim of both strategies is to make EU food systems a global standard for sustainability and to take urgent action to protect and restore Europe's biodiversity.
With a budget of around 35 million euros co-funded by the European Union, the Internet of Food and Farms project, IoF2020, aims to create a change to significantly improve the productivity and sustainability of agricultural and livestock practices.
AREFLH is a partner of NUTRIMAN, a Nitrogen and Phosphorus thematic network compiling knowledge for recovered bio-based fertilizer products, technologies, applications, and practices. 
AREFLH is a partner of the project SmartProtect, which is a thematic network focusing on cross-regional knowledge sharing of SMART IPM solutions for farmers and advisors.
For years, the School Fruit, Vegetables and Milk scheme, promoted by the European Union, has been aimed at primary school children to develop a conscious consumption of fruits and vegetables and raise awareness of the benefits of healthy eating, through the creation of specific thematic days in schools and production sites.
