Agriculture and agri-food: Politecnico's contribution for the growth of the sector

Agriculture and agri-food can benefit greatly from an engineering approach to production, because production processes increasingly apply models and methodologies based on technology and innovation, even when dealing with living plant and animal systems. For this reason, Politecnico di Torino has a strong and authoritative presence in the field of innovation dedicated to agriculture and agri-food. A relevance that is particularly evident through Agritech (National Research Centre for Technology in Agriculture) and NODES (Nord Ovest Digitale e Sostenibile), both made possible by funds provided by the PNRR. These two areas of research now bring a wide range of technical solutions to businesses.

Danilo Demarchi, professor at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET) is the coordinator of the University's activities in the projects Agritech and NODES dedicated to agriculture and agri-food. He immediately highlights the most important result achieved: “We have managed to bring together researchers from different centers in Italy working on agriculture and agri-food, with an exponential increase in collaborations, research initiatives and results achieved. In other words, with Agritech, but also with the NODES-Nord-Ovest Digitale e Sostenibile (Digital and Sustainable North-West) Innovation Ecosystem, the PNRR has created an important ecosystem dedicated to agriculture and agri-food that has strengthened research and connected its “links”, producing a series of important results now available to businesses. All of this also enabled us to reorganize and consolidate Politecnico's diverse areas of expertise in this field.”.

Within Agritech, Politecnico di Torino worked in spoke 6 – dedicated to management models promoting sustainability and resilience – and in spoke 8 – dedicated to new models for circularity in agriculture with a particular focus on waste management. In particular, the activity of spoke 6 was aimed at gathering the contributions that would enable companies to implement sustainable production processes in practice. In this context, work was carried out on data management, water use, and optimization of the use of materials and individual production processes. The results touched on numerous aspects of agricultural production, such as mechanization, the IoT, and chemistry in the fields. Spoke 8, on the other hand, addressed issues relating to the valorization of agri-food and agro-industrial waste. Leveraging green chemistry, biotechnology and thermochemical processes, spoke 8 wanted to obtain new materials, fertilizers, bio-derived molecules and sustainable energy. Waste can be converted into bioplastics, composites, biochar and products for the agricultural, food and pharmaceutical industries. Imaging techniques and deep learning support the assessment of waste quality and maturation. Additionally, automated and robotic systems have been developed for efficient process management. Politecnico’s work on Spoke 8 was coordinated by Nunzio Russo, professor at the Department of Applied Science and Technology -DISAT.

After the PNRR, Agritech will continue to work, capitalizing on the network of relationships and scientific exchanges built up during the project. For example, remaining within research applied to agricultural production, “Digi Open Lab” has been launched in the Piedmont region.A project created with the contribution of Politecnico, which aims to be a real “laboratory of ideas” in the region, creating an open, dynamic and collaborative space where researchers. Here, businesses and farmers can develop innovative solutions using the most advanced technologies applied in the field, solutions capable of responding to the global challenges that today threaten the future of the agri-food sector.

While Politecnico's involvement in Agritech focused on agriculture, in NODES spoke 7 PoliTO worked on secondary agro-industry, working to innovate the food system in north-western Italy, the aim? Making agri-food companies more competitive on local, national and international markets. In this context, activities focused on healthy food (safe, healthy and high-quality food production), green food (sustainable food production through the application of circular economy principles) and smart food (intelligent systems, processes and tools for food processing supported by the new paradigms of Industry 4.0 and 5.0).

“We believe – Professor Demarchi and Professor Russo conclude – that we have contributed significantly to the technological growth of the Italian agri-food supply chain, and above all in the significance of having been partners in the creation of a network of expertise whose solidity is now available to businesses, promoting the transfer of innovation from the world of research to the production system and accelerating the adoption of sustainable and circular solutions”.