CREA

Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l'Analisi dell'Economia Agraria

CREA (Council for Agricultural Research and Economics) is the leading Italian research organization dedicated to agri-food supply chains. It operates as a legal entity under public law and is supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests (Masaf). Our scientific activity covers agricultural crops, livestock, fishery, forestry, agro-industry, food science – and socio-economics. The organization foresees 12 research centres (6 related to specific supply chains and 6 dedicated to horizontal topics) which are forming a capillary network of structures throughout the country. It deals with the great challenges of the 21st century related to food production sustainability, following the principles of circular bio-based economy through a multidisciplinary approach that includes genetics, physiology, mechanics robotics, agri-food industry processes, nutritional properties of foods and dietary aspects as well as consumer protection and education, and waste reduction.

Role in PRO-GRACE

CREA participates in PRO-GRACE with 33.5 person-months and is involved in all the work packages. Its main involvement is in WP4 (Plant genetic resources evaluation and valorization) and in WP5 (Research Infrastructure concept, social and regulatory aspects, governance and financial plan). In WP4, it is co-leader and has the responsibility of task 4.3 (D4.3): establishing protocols and descriptors for the evaluation of the phenotypes and agronomic characteristics of PGR. In WP5 it is leader of task 5.3 (D5.3): preparing a financial plan for the proposed infrastructure, covering the design and preparation phases. CREA is participating in the proof of concepts analyzing phenotypically and genotypically the core collection of pepper in order to establish standard operating procedures for genebank germplasm management.