“One grazing suckler bovine ensures the conservation of two hectares of grassland habitat.
This gives the measure of how important grazing is also in terms of environmental and landscape sealing of our territory,” said the Lazio Regional Agriculture Councillor at the close of the intensive discussion table organized by the LIFE Grace project, in collaboration with AIA, last March 21 in Rome. Adding about this morning and the actions proposed by the Grace project, “Together with the farmers we examined important measures that we will adopt.”
The purpose of the meeting was precisely to enhance the ecological role of nature conservation that pasture-raised animal production can offer. Indeed, the Grace project, whose lead partner is the Lazio Regional Agency for Development and Innovation (Arsal), has long been committed to the preservation of the rural landscape and to the conservation of grassland habitats falling under the Natura 2000 Network.
The meeting, which was attended by many representatives of the agricultural and pastoral world of the Lazio region, was attended not only by Councillor Righini himself, but also by ARSIAL Special Commissioner Massimiliano Raffa, ARSIAL General Director Giacomo Guastella, Regional Environment Director Vito Consoli, Michele Blasi as DQA technician, Mauro Donda, AIA General Director, and Claudio Di Giovannantonio of Arsial.
It becomes, therefore, important what the councilor stated because it signifies an acknowledgement and a commitment in making concrete on the institutional level what Grace has achieved so far. The strengthening of the market, through supply chain agreements for herds centered on the cow-calf line, will in fact serve to guarantee a future for thousands of small family businesses, still active on hundreds of thousands of hectares of pastures, mostly collectively owned and that would otherwise remain worthless and of little or no use. What’s more, this commitment goes in the exact direction of restoring, by 2030, thousands of hectares of grassland habitats, which are being abandoned or degraded as the “Nature Restoration Law”, the law for the restoration of ecosystems in Europe approved just a month ago by the European Parliament.
LIFE GRACE (26/03/2024)