PID-Integrated District Project “Nursery for a sustainable future”
A) Brief description of the project
The project, which is headed by the Italian Nursery Association as a referent of the Ornamental Nursery District of Pistoia, aimed to pursue the following lines of action:
1) process innovation aimed at the modernization of farms and production techniques, the qualitative and quantitative improvement of the same, the cost-effectiveness and profitability of management especially for smaller farms;
2) improvement of marketing methods and the enhancement of the product, in order to increase the penetration on a market that has become global and to overcome the competition of the other Italian and European productive poles;
3) adoption of production techniques with low environmental impact and in particular the results of the AUTOFITOVIV project, already financed under the RDP and coordinated by the lead Italian Nursery Association, in order to make it increasingly “green” nurseries operating in the district;
4) involvement in the project of all the components of the district and therefore the primary producers (large, medium and small enterprises), the territorial Public Authorities, the professional organizations and unions, the subsidiary, the research bodies and all other stakeholders.
The supply chain involved the stages of primary production, processing (including storage and packaging prior to sale) and marketing (with particular reference to logistics). A total of 126 subjects were involved. All the participants, direct and indirect, to the PID, have undersigned an agreement of district: such document has had the scope to regulate the relationships between the participants that operate on the territory “district” and they characterize, besides the proposer subject, the objectives, the actions, investments, timing, results and mutual obligations. The main results of the agreement were:
- strengthening of the participating nursery enterprises, both as direct and indirect participants, with optimisation of production factors and process innovation;
- a qualitative and quantitative increase in production in order to support the positive growth phase of the demand for ornamental plants at global level, after the economic crisis has been overcome;
- strengthening of the nursery district as a whole, through a framework of coordination between leading nurseries in the sector but historically competing with each other; able with the plan to create new productive alliances and above all to overcome the approach of market based almost exclusively on the competitiveness to level of price and the diversification of the offer of the products;
- enhancing the role of producer associations in the wider context of policies and instruments to support investment and modernise agricultural holdings;
- the reduction of the impact of production processes on the agro-ecosystem, in order to make all the companies involved in the “virtuous” project become “virtuous” with the massive adoption of “good practices”.
B) The project numbers
Agricultural holdings participating directly: No 39
Indirect participating agricultural holdings: no 43
Total subjects involved: No 126
Quantity of product covered by the supply chain agreement on an annual average basis:1,051,800 ornamental plants
Annual average value of the product: 3,940,500 €
Type of measures activated: 4.1.3 – 4.1.5 – 4.2.1 PSR TOSCANA
Total investments: €11,664,142.12
Public contribution required: 4,525,096.85