Implementing multifunctional and integrated productive approaches to improve socioeconomic sustainability and develop rural marginal area: a bet for the future of agriculture

The United Nations 2030 Agenda includes the European “Green Deal” as an essential part that sets ambitious goals for the economy and for the agricultural sector, aiming to preserve natural resources and achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This document highlights the key role of the agri-food sector and the importance of the “Farm to Fork” strategy as an operational tool to implement the “Green Deal” in the agricultural sector. The challenge of next generation agriculture will be to provide sufficient, nutrient, and safe food for an ever-greater number of people, creating new models that integrate productivity, reduced use of resources, energy and production inputs, decarbonization, and socio-economic-cultural development. This is a global defiance, set in a difficult context of unstable climate, growing competition for land, water, and energy, in an increasingly urbanized and globalized world. These expectations have been implemented in the Italian AGRITECH - National Research Center for Agricultural Technologies, which is part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Strengthening research structures and creation of ‘national champions of R&D’ on some Key Enabling Technologies” financed by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. One of the lines of research of this wide project is aimed at the implementation of integrated models for the development of marginal areas, which favor the multifunctionality of production systems and improve the agroecological and socio-economic sustainability of agricultural activity.