the Future Farming Initiative
the Future Farming laboratories, 10 minutes from Venice international airport and facing the lagoon
Venice, 12 May 2023 – A pre-industrial research and technology transfer infrastructure that aims to become a point of reference at European level in the Future Farming sector and to attract projects and researchers from all over the world with the aim of generating industrial projects and technological startups. With intersectoral research areas, ranging from the foodtech industry to that of biomaterials, from wellness to biopharmaceuticals, from the circularity industry to aerospace applications, with environmental and economic sustainability as common denominators. It is the one that will be built in Veneto by the Ca' Foscari University of Venice thanks to a public PNRR grant from the PNRR, for a total investment of 20 million euros.
The "Future Farming - Innovation Technology Infrastructure" project will see the birth of a mixed public-private company devoted to act as a catalyst for technology transfer and attractor of talent: the selection for the identification of the private partner has been awarded to ZERO, a Pordenone-based company that develops proprietary and patented technologies for vertical farming. The company will co-finance 51% of the construction of the infrastructure and will manage its research activities in the future, assisted by Ca' Foscari and other universities in the Northeast which will be invited to be part of the technical-scientific committee of the initiative.
"Future Farming is an example of the potential of public-private partnerships and represents a great opportunity for innovation in the biotechnology sector applied to the agriculture of the future" declares Tiziana Lippiello, rector of the Ca' Foscari University of Venice. «The project combines research, innovation and interdisciplinarity and demonstrates how our universities and our country have talents and creativity capable of having an impact on the great global challenges of our time. Ca' Foscari is a state-of-the-art university in scientific experimentation and was able to immediately grasp the challenge and responsibility offered by the PNRR and by the collaboration with the universities of the North East; it is truly a great satisfaction to have also garnered the interest of a corporate group that has supported this project with such a considerable investment».
The Future Farming project has an international dimension, as confirmed by the interest already expressed by the Japanese corporation Mitsui & Co., a global trading and investment company, by the IBISBA Institute of Toulouse and by the American SynBioBeta. Other industrial players are interested in commissioning for future development and research activities in multiple sectors such as biotechnology and bio-industry: among them Kbio, Officianae Bio, Zoppas Industries, Labomar, Hello Tomorrow, Gruppo Abbi, Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo and Signify, with Cisco and Dell Technologies as tech partners.