JAN, 25 (EUROPA PRESS)
The University of Jan (UJA) hosts this Wednesday and Thursday the launch meeting of the Soil O-live project, whose objective is to study the effect of agricultural management on the general health status of the soils of Mediterranean olive groves, as well as its impact on the production and quality of olive oils produced in the Mediterranean region.
The project, coordinated with the UJA, has a consortium made up of 17 partners and has funding of almost seven million euros within the framework of the Soil Heath and Food Mission of the Horizon Europe R+D+i program (framework program of research and innovation of the European Union for the period 2021-2027).
The inaugural act was attended by the rector of the University of Jan, Juan Gómez, accompanied by the director of the University Institute for Olive and Olive Oil Research of the UJA (INUO), Juan Bautista Barroso, and the coordinator of the project, the Professor of the area of Ecology, Antonio José Manzaneda.
“For the University of Jan it is a privilege to be able to coordinate this project and a sample of the magnificent research work we do, particularly in the field of olive groves and olive oils”, assured Gómez.
For his part, the project coordinator has declared that, after more than 50 years of intensive agriculture, the environmental situation of many olive groves in the Mediterranean region is “quite dramatic” in terms of land degradation, impoverishment of biodiversity and general loss of functionality, which may have already impacted the quality and safety of the olive oil.
In this sense, this project will carry out the first rigorous diagnosis of the environmental situation of olive grove soils on a large scale, considering the most important areas of olive production in the Mediterranean region and their relations with the olive grove and olive oil quality.
“Once we have that x-ray, we will propose restoration practices to ensure the health of the soil and obtain olive oils produced in a sustainable manner. Because the olive grove will either be sustainable or it will not be”, Antonio José Manzaneda declared.
Thus, Soil O-live aims to analyze the impact of contamination and land degradation on olive grove soils in terms of multibiodiversity, ecological function at different levels of organization and scales, and to investigate the relationship between the state of soil health soil with the quality and safety of olive oil.
It also aims to implement effective soil amendments and ecological restoration practices that promote overt improvements in biodiversity and soil functionality in permanent Mediterranean olive groves in their native range, which should translate into improvements in olive oil quality and safety.
Along with this, it seeks to define rigorous ecological thresholds that allow the implementation of future clear rules and regulations to design a new certification for healthy soils in European olive groves.
THE CONSORTIUM
The project consortium is made up of 15 academic institutions and two companies in the olive sector. At the national level, the project relies, in addition to the UJA, which acts as coordinator, with the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) through three research centers — Zaidn Experimental Station, Institute of Sustainable Agriculture and Aula Experimental Station. Dei– and the University of Castilla La Mancha.
At the international level, institutions such as the University of Roma Tre (Italy), the Free University of Berlin (Germany), the University of Tras-Os-Montes and Alto Douro (Portugal), the University of the Aegean (Greece), the Hellenic University of the Mediterranean (Greece), ELGO-DIMITRA (Greece), the University of Silesia in Katowice (Poland), the University of Palermo (Italy), the National Research Council of Italy-Bari (CNR), the National School of Agriculture of Meknes (Morocco) and as associated partner the University of Bern (Switzerland).
As companies in the sector there are Nutesca SL and Deoleo Global SA, one of the main marketing companies in the olive oil sector in the world. In addition, the Spanish Agency for Standardization participates as a partner. Finally, Soil O-live has the backing of the International Olive Oil Council and the support of the European Soil Data Center (ESDAC) of the Joint Research Center of the European Commission.
