LiveSeeding Living Lab on organic rice in Northern Italy was presented at the the 4th International Symposium on Organic Rice Farming and Production Systems at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, from 4th to 7th of September!
The first International Symposium on Organic Rice Production Systems was held in September 2012, hosted by the Montpellier Center of the French National Institute of Agriculture (INRAE). The second edition was organized by the University of Milan in September 2015, within the Expo “Feeding the Earth, Energy for Life”. In March 2018, the Brazilian Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainable Development hosted the third edition in Porto Alegre. The Symposium was initiated to conduct an international comparison of the organic rice production systems, based on the different experiences and results, with an increasing number of participants at each edition.
The conference was a great opportunity for international participants from Japan, Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, France and Italy to exchange experiences and learn more about Japanese organic rice cultivation practices, particularly on weed control strategies and techniques for organic paddy rice fields managed without rotation. Japan is a major rice producing and country, however its organic rice production currently represents only about 5% of the total rice cultivated area. The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has introduced the “MIDORI” (Green in Japanese) strategy for sustainable food systems, with the target to increase the area of organic farmland to 25 % of the total agricultural area by 2050.
Presentation of Living Lab
Matteo Petitti from Rete Semi Rurali (RSR) gave an oral presentation on the Italian Living Lab on organic rice titled: “Rice Diversity from Seed to Fork: a Living Lab for Organic Rice in Northern Italy” and highlighted the importance of organic rice seed and appropriate varieties and populations for organic rice systems.
