CITIES & COMMUNITIES
THE ENVIRONMENT PRODUCER APPROACH
We convert rural suburbs
from agricultural deserts into enjoyable, environment producing areas
to provide environmental services to nearby cities
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We replicate this model for customers and administrations all over the world
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THE FIRST ONGOING CURRENT APPLICATIONS
Giussago, ITALY
Marula, KENYA
Ontario, CANADA
Louisiana, USA
THE PROCESS
how it works
Agriculture has left an indelible imprint on the landscape, transforming formerly wooded areas into open fields and pastures where modern monocultures have had a detrimental effect on biodiversity, fertility and environment.
Soil fertility is being lost day by day due to human activities and agricultural practices based on mono-culture, chemical insecticides, reduction of biodiversity and focus on just macro-elements for fertilization.
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And all these practices result in more and more CO2 and methane emissions, causing agriculture to be one of the main greenhouse gasses emissions responsible worldwide.
BEFORE
Are we sure this is the only feasible model to be followed?
AFTER
In 1996 NeoruraleHub, in a cooperation with three international Universities, launched a project involving an area of about 500 hectares in the southern suburbs of Milan.
This experiment was aimed to improve the so called “agricultural desert” of northern Italy, where agricultural land is fully exploited in the most intensive way for food production and, since ever, no relevant free space is left for animals and flora.
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This area, called Cassinazza, was redesigned according to the prehistorical status of Po Valley: about 1,8 million trees were planted while wetlands and bio-filters cans were created for land protection and water purification. Nature was allowed to start back.
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NeoruraleHub has demonstrated with its experiments that biodiversity can be recreated even where human activities and urbanization has reduced it over decades.
In just few years, nature can recover damages created in centuries, bringing back biodiversity and soil fertility to the pre-industrial era.
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NeoruraleHub properties are today back to 1,000 a.D. in terms of biodiversity, while soil fertility has grown by +153% in just 20 years. And it happens at just 18 kms away from Milan city center.
NeoruraleHub shows how agriculture can exist alongside agricultural production and a return to a natural landscape is possible and sustainable, from all points of view.
There are interactions releated to ecosystem services, which are crucial for the social, environmental and economic sustainability (air quality, water resources, waste decomposition and biodiversity), that rural areas are often major providers, and urban amenties needed by rural residents, such as cultural events or complex consumption.
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By partnering rural areas with urban development, it is possible to create synergies to transform agricultural suburbs into environmental services providers for the cities, where energy is recovered, waste recycled and the resulting enjoyable environment can become the place for promoting innovation and start-ups.
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Nature and technology together can transform rural landscape, resulting in an increased value of properties, a healthier environment and a sustainable agriculture industry which reduce drastically its impact on the environment.