AEIFORIA aims to provide a number of services to agricultural and food companies, industry and companies that produce, sell and commercialize chemical substances and technologies in the agrochemical sector.

Staff, Institutions, network

AEIFORIA has a small but permanent staff of professionals, qualified and recognized at the international level

AEIFORIA keeps anyway a flexible structure to cope with the different needs of customers and to provide them with always interdisciplinary services. AEIFORIA indeed aims to provide different services to industries and agricultural companies that produce, sell, use or commercialize technologies and food.

In case of confidential activities, for experience and regulation, for subjects  in possess of  necessary  professional titles or authorized to conduct specific activities due to special regulations, the company collaborate to services execution, acting under common responsibility. To this aim the company takes advantage of consultants  present at the national and international level, of participation in network and of contracts with public and institutional bodies.

Network

AEIFORIA is able to provide integrated services that for legal reasons or applicative knowledge  are related to different professional categories. The choice of  being a group, providing to the customer more services realized in a coordinated manner, has the advantage to be competitive from an economic and logistic point of view, allowing to business men to solve complex legal requirements, to prevent  and manage risks arising from missing or misinterpretation of processes, to innovate their productive processes towards their optimization. Networks moreover represent such a strong partnership that allow to undertake and develop larger scale deliverables.

In September 2009 some of them have been established and  the commercial formalization is ongoing with the partners. Proactively AEIFORIA foresees to expand its network on the basis of problems and services required.

Studies of environmental impact

In the studies on the environmental impact AEIFORIA can act in sinergy with another spin-off of the Università Cattolica, campus of Brescia: ECOMETRICS, to provide complex environmental analyses related to environmental monitoring of air, water, soil and living organisms in agricultural, urban, natural and anthropic ecosystems. Besides that is possible to obtain integrated approaches with socio-economic and environmental analyses.
Through this network it’s possible to provide services of strategic environmental evaluation (VAS) of plans and programs, support activities to study procedures and evaluations of environmental impact (VIA) of single projects, environmental certifications, integrated activities for companies and local bodies. The collaboration allows also the integration of economic and ecological competences with environmental technical services  (chemical analysis and physico-chemical monitoring).

Chemicals regulation

To grant a high level of protection of human health and the environment is the declared aim of national and EC regulation. REACH (1907/2006), CLP (1272/2008) regulation like the recent Italian DLgs 81/2008 related to the safety prescriptions in work places, are some examples. The business man cannot avoid to manage carefully this subject, nor can underestimate the commercial feedback deriving from the application of these regulation, that require chemical, toxicological, ecotoxicological and regulation knowledge. To reach this aim AEIFORIA is able to provide services of modelling and development of scenarios for the evaluation of ecotoxicological risk and of environmental impacts, operating closely with HORTA, another spin-off of Università Cattolica that deals with  the agronomic studies of efficacy, MELETE that deals with the analysis of toxicological risk and last but not least with SILC Fertilizzanti for the commercial, regulatory and chemical aspects related to the fertilizer sector.

Authorization of plant protection products (PPPs)

The monitoring activities and the evaluation and analysis of risk in operating conditions for PPPs are regulated  by Directive 91/414, that  establishes a procedure to provide the documentation needed for molecules candidate to the use as active substances, that have to be judged acceptable as far as regards their risk to human health and the environment (art. 5,6). The documentation is organized in a registration dossier that is assembled according to specific European guidelines. The studies required are grouped into sections, each of them refers to a specific directive, that specifies the content of the section.

The framework of the different sections is the following:

1. Data related to the active substance and the notifier (Dir. 94/37 CE);
2. Physico-chemical characterization (Dir. 94/37 CE);
3. Uses (Dir. 93/71 CE);
4. Efficacy (Dir. 93/71 CE);
5. Methods of analysis (Dir. 96/46 CE);
6. Toxicology and metabolism (Dir. 94/79 CE);
7. Residues (Dir. 96/86 CE);
8. Fate and environmental behaviour (Dir. 95/36 CE);
9. Ecotoxicology (Dir. 96/12 CE);
10. Classification and labelling (see paragraph 4.1).

AEIFORIA provides mainly points 7, 8 e 9 in network with EXPEDIA MRCC (Mediterranean Regulatory Consulting Company); with Expedia MRCC and its network of laboratories and field study centers  is also possible to obtain the tests and reports needed for the implementation of a complete dossier for each kind of PPP and to follow all the evaluation and authorization steps by the competent public bodies.

Sustainable use of plant protection products (PPPs)

The thematic strategy adopted by the European Commission (COM (2006) 372), on the sustainable use of plant protection products (PPPs), indicates measures finalized to fill the gap in the regulation related to the use phase of products  (“National plan for integrated management of 1988”, “Operative Plans of the Organizations of Big Producers” in application of Reg. n. 2200/99 and of “agrienvironmental measures” foreseen by Reg. CE n. 2078/92 and Reg. CE n. 1257/99, etc...) and to  create a context of coherent and homogeneous policies.

In this context finds place the proposal of the EU Directive on the sustainable use of PPPs. To this purpose, are already foreseen specific measures that give incentives to an agriculture with a low input of PPPs in the context of the agricultural community policy (PAC) and, in particular, in the context of Reg. (CE) n. 1698/2005, on support to rural development. Measures like the implementation of buffer zones, the realization of eco-engeneering works, the correct use of the integrated crop protection management, the certification of equipments, the use of water depuration plants, the aware management and safe application of chemical substances (included the adoption of self-protective equipments) have to be implemented case by case depending from the needs and opportunities. In this field AEIFORIA is reach of competence, but it is also able to provide to larger scale needs together with the spin-off HORTA and AGRICOLTURA RESPONSABILE (Responsible Agriculture) of Syngenta.

Programs of sustainability for viticulture

The awareness of the progressive shortening of  the resources of the planet has lead to the birth and   popularity in the last decades of XX century of a new idea of development defined as sustainable, able “to grant the needs of the present without compromising the possibility of the future generation to do the same”. Sustainable development has become therefore a pillar of the European policy with the objective of achieving at the same time a development efficient from an economic point of view, social equity and ecosustainability. It is in this context that the program of sustainability developed by the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry has arisen, in order to obtain a culture of sustainable viticulture for the Italian landscape. Viticulture foresees that a portion of landscape can be organized according to agrochemical aims and can be therefore object of an economic balance.

Since the validity of the adopted strategy is measured by the results obtained, evaluating the ratio between positive and negative effects in relationship with the costs needed to obtain the defined objectives, the analysis of cultivation dynamics has to be traduced into a program to be made operative through a high efficiency company organization. The implementation of the program require different professional competences, audit processes, requie method, VINIDEA  the role of enological audit, FULTURA of the economic and regulatory analysis and of structural planning, INFORMATICA AMBIENTALE of the development of softwares and databases, Dott. Roberto Miravalle and Dr. Matteo Balderacchi of the agroeconomic audit.

GLP laboratory and field studies

AEIFORIA work in collaboration with  Cerzoo S.r.l. - Centro di Ricerche per la Zootecnia e l'Ambiente certified by Italian Ministry of Health to carried out GLP (Good Laboratory Practice) and by MIPAAF to carried out GFP (Good Field Practice) studies. CERZOO is a research center able to develop animals studies in according to the Good Laboratory Practice certification, and field studies. The farm, that has more than 40 hectares just 4 km far from the company site, allows to conduct parcel trials and field studies at the conditions of use of the products.

AEIFORIA has also 10 wells scattered along the Po valley with which is possible to conduct field leaching studies. These field wells are provided with a set of piezometers, weather stations, groundwater level measurements and they allow the sampling of groundwater, of soil and anything else required by the customers. The fields are provided also with hydro-geological studies that allow to know the movement of water both as far as regards direction and time. Moreover ad hoc scenarios have been developed, that allow to integrate the field study with the modelling work.

Training courses

The main operative partner of AEIFORIA is Università Cattolica that is also its moral provider and human resources user. Together, they are able to transfer highly qualified specific knowledge to the public administration, private bodies, teachers, in the different environmental, industrial, food and agricultural operative fields.