Italy interested in sustainable biotechnology, says agriculture minister
According to Teresa Bellanova, Italy’s Minister for Agriculture, the country is interested in focusing on sustainable biotechnologies such as genome editing. One of Italy’s leading farmers’ organisation Coldiretti and the Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics are about to sign an agreement on next-generation biotechnologies. The agreement will open up new possibilities for the application of biotech in farming, with a focus on typical Italian varieties such as vines. Minister Bellanova also spoke in favour of public research in biotech, noting that ‘these innovative techniques do in less time what natural crossbreeding would do in several steps and more slowly’.