La Colombaia - Società Agricola Semplice LA COLOMBAIA, Italy

The agricultural farm “La Colombaia” has a total surface of 80 ha divided in 3 separated parts:

• The first is located in the countryside of Capua (Caserta). It is the headquarters of the company with an area of 30 ha, of which 10 ha is devoted to vegetables crops grown in tunnels.
• The second is in the countryside of Castelvolturno (Caserta) with an area of 35 ha devoted to cereals, legumes and vegetables in open field condition.
• The third is in the countryside of San Tammaro (Caserta) with an area of 15 ha devoted to vegetables crops grown in tunnels.

The company has 3000 square meters of covered warehouse for the processing of leafy vegetables as well as for packaging in baskets and bags (ready to eat products). The facility is also equipped with a refrigerator cell for a storage capacity of around 900 t.
Since 1996, the farm cultivated according to organic methods. Since 2007, La Colombaia converted to biodynamic methods of cultivation and today certifies its entire production using the DEMETER mark that guarantees full compliance to the biodynamic method of cultivation.
The company sells it's products on both the Italian and foreign markets, under its own brand. The main markets are represented by large retailers in Germany and England (Tesco, Tegut, Migros, Dennree, Edeka, etc.) while, in Italy, the farm sells to EcorNaturaSi a retailer specialized on organic foods. The company also supplies to the most important Italian catering chains (CAMST, BIOLOGICA, etc.) for the supply of at least one meal with organic ingredients to public institutions canteens (schools, hospitals, universities, etc.).

Role in the project

La Colombaia will host the Italian experimental site of the Greenresilient project. La Colombaia's main role will be to implement the experimental design in concert with the other Italian partner (CREA- RPS) and work package 2 (resilient cropping systems) and to carry out the field activities needed for a system comparison between an organic conventional systems of production (indicated as Business as Usual – BAU) and an innovative and more resilient system of production. The experiment will be carried out for two years.