Success Story

The Sante Giuntoli’s Farm is located in Troia, a small village in the province of Foggia (Apulia region, Italy). The farm has a surface area of 100 ha with 3 people as permanent staff. They are cultivating the following crops: durum wheat (Triticum durum L.), field bean (Vicia faba subsp. Minor), sunflower (Heliantus annuus L.), and chickpea (Cicer aretinum L.). They have also a small livestock breeding with 20 calves. They apply some of the practices of regenerative agriculture (RA) that are common to soil conservative practices. In particular, they apply a two-year crop rotation, alternating legumes and cereals. They also execute no-tillage soil management and use legumes as cover crops. They apply the abovementioned practices on the overall farm. Specifically, they started to apply previous practices in 2008, and they are still applying them in the present.

The farmer is an agronomist. In 1977, a Professor held a lesson about the benefits of sod seeding, therefore he was very passionate about it. Therefore. he started to apply it very roughly with old machines, but with the new machine for sod seeding ha has entirely converted his farm. He received training from some agricultural associations, but also from the company that sold him the sod seeding machine. However, he received financial support from some regional funds (330 €/ha). After the application of the soil conservative practices, he experienced an increase in gross production, soil organic matter, and soil fertility, but also a reduction of workload. On the other hand, he has had a problem with Lolium and he solved it with the use of a decision-supporting system (DSS). Altogether, the farmer is very happy to apply soil conservative practices.

LABELS: Italy, crop-production, crop-rotation