ADVANCED SCHOOL FOR THE STUDY OF THE AGRONOMICAL PROBLEMS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION «GIAN PIETRO BALLATORE»

No technical or economic innovation should be developed without considering its impact on the climate and soil. This statement is particularly true for agriculture in the semi-arid and hot-arid areas of the Mediterranean. Here, there are still numerous problems linked to biological and environmental uncertainties that dominate productivity, and where the limiting factors are certainly not only macroscopic ones. Agriculture in these Mediterranean areas can be reinvigorated, but it must first be revitalised by a new type of technical progress. This technical progress must stem from the intertwining of strong links between pure and applied scientific research: one part from formal genetics, the other from agronomy and vegetable cultivation. It has been proposed that the School make a positive contribution to such a vast problem; and also that from time to time the School conduct discussions and in-depth studies of great interest for the progress of agriculture, organising courses to which eminent Italian and foreign professors will be invited. Among the topics of greatest interest are: the possibilities and limitations of biological transformation and applied genetics; plant ecology in the Mediterranean area; the microbiological basis of soil depletion and the prospects for monoculture; the development and growth laws of biotypes in relation to climatic factors and vegetable cultivation; agritourism and ecology; prospects for scientific research in agriculture and agronomic techniques up to the year 2000; problems of soil fertility conservation in Mediterranean regions; vine cultivation in the Mediterranean area; intensive fruit growing, endemism and floriculture in the same area; group research and agronomic progress in the Mediterranean basin