An experimental rice field obtained with assisted evolution techniques (Tea) was “completely destroyed” last night “by unknown persons” who, after tampering with the surveillance camera and tearing up the protective metal mesh, cut and uprooted the seedlings . This was announced by the Lombardy Region which had started the experimentation with the University of Milan. “We are not talking about an act of vandalism. It is a criminal gesture, which compromises an experiment that we were the first to manage to start in Italy” comments the regional councilor for Agriculture Alessandro Beduschi.
It happened in Mezzana Bigli, in the province of Pavia, where the University of Milan was testing the response of plants to the fungus responsible for the disease known as ‘brusone’, a pathology that can lead to production losses of up to 50% and against where there are few drugs. Le Tea, in fact, focusing on genetic improvement (without the insertion of foreign DNA, thus differentiating itself from GMOs banned in Italy) to obtain more productive and disease-resistant plants, reducing the use of pesticides and pesticides and rationalizing the use of waterfall.
“We are witnessing – adds Maria Pia Abbracchio, vice-rector of the University of Milan with responsibility for the coordination and promotion of research – a resurgence of obscurantist and anti-scientific violence which as a State University we have no intention of tolerating”.
Tonight, June 21st, a group of eco-terrorists destroyed the experimental rice field inaugurated on May 13th in the province of Pavia. This rice called RIS8imo was developed with Assisted Evolution Techniques (Tea) at the University of Milan, with the aim of…
— chicco testa (@chiccotesta) June 21, 2024
The former president of Legambiente Chicco Testa accuses a group of eco-terrorists of “obscurantism and anti-scientific impulses”. The experimental rice field was inaugurated last May 13th in the Radice Fossati agricultural company, the result of work begun in 2017 by Fabio Fornara’s RIS8imo research group from the department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Biosciences. The RIS8imo project had passed all levels of environmental impact assessment of the Ministry of the Environment, of the relevant ISPRA commission and the Senator for life and pharmacologist Elena Cattaneo had wanted to personally witness the planting of the RIS8imo, promoting the the idea of an alliance between public research, the State and the business world, aimed at building a future with fewer agrochemicals, better quality and health safety of food and greater competitiveness on world markets, but also at protecting a typical product made to enhance characteristic recipes of typical national cuisine.