0000000000045917
AUTHOR
Cristiana Peano
showing 28 related works from this author
The potential of the Sorb (Sorbus domestica L.) as a minor fruit species in the Mediterranean areas: description and quality traits of underutilized …
2017
Biodiversity linked to fruit cultivation plays a key role in terms of the availability of quality products and nutraceutical compounds for the food industry. Thus underutilized species such as Sorbus domestica L. can be an important resource. The aim of this study was to evaluate 31 local accessions from different growing areas on the Island of Sicily and characterize the fruits according to the biometric-carpological features that constitute their quality in order to understand the potential that this species may have not only regarding the recovery and preservation of genetic resources in the Mediterranean area but also the nutraceutical compounds it offers. The results from this prelimin…
Can the Caper (Capparis spinosa L.) Still Be Considered a Difficult-to-Propagate Crop?
2021
As a perennial xerophytic shrub, characterized by plesiomorphic features, the caper (Capparis spinosa L.) is naturally spread throughout the Mediterranean basin and occupies an important ecological role, as well as an economic one, in traditional and specialized systems for commercial production. This species, in spite of its wide diffusion, is currently considered at risk of genetic erosion, mainly due to overgrazing and overharvesting for domestic uses and for trade. This situation is made more serious because of the lack of efficient propagation techniques, determining the caper as a “difficult-to-propagate species”. In this review, we report the main available sexual and vegetative prop…
Effect of Palletized Map Storage on the Quality and Nutritional Compounds of the Japanese Plum cv. Angeleno (Prunus salicina Lindl.)
2016
The influence of active modified atmosphere packaging MAP (10.0 kPa of O2 and 5 kPa of CO2) on palletized system was evaluated to extend the marketability of fresh plums cv. Angeleno. Fruits were wrapped with a polyethylene film in pallet bag units at 1C and 90% relative humidity for up to 60 days. The gas values of the pallet bags, the fruit weight losses and their qualitative and nutraceutical characteristics were periodically monitored to evaluate the goodness of storage. The results showed as the pallet bag have maintained the market life of Angeleno plums to up to 60 days, preserving the most important qualitative traits of fruits. After 20, 40 and 60 days the MAP treatment maintained …
Urban gardens and institutional fences: The case of communal gardens in Turin
2017
Urban gardens take on different forms and meanings, which vary depending on the socio-economic context where they located/used and how it evolves over time. This makes a garden comparable to a micro-social ecosystem, different from other gardens and ever changing. As with every social-ecosystem resulting from a territorialisation process, there is a certain degree of social inertia that makes it difficult for outsiders with new motivations and demanding new spaces to enter into the "garden ecosystem". Drawing on existing literature and fieldwork in two urban communal gardens in Turin, the paper is mainly concerned with the spatiotemporal dimension of urban gardening, with a special focus on…
“Local Production”: What Do Consumers Think?
2022
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a growing interest among consumers and producers in downscaling to a local level the length of the agri-food chains as a solution for fairer and more sustainable food production systems. From the point of view of consumption, the attribute “local” is assuming an important role in defining food purchasing preferences, both in terms of expectations of product quality and in terms of its perceived relevance in determining the supply chain sustainability. This research aims to define how individuals’ perception of local production influences the definition of “local” among consumers based on a survey submitted to a sample of 500 consumers in North-Western Ita…
Pathways for the amplification of agroecology in African sustainable urban agriculture
2020
A growing awareness that highly intensified agricultural systems have made a substantial worldwide contribution to the worsening of the resilience capacity of natural ecosystems has, over the last twenty years, brought general attention to agroecological management models. This aspect is even more evident in industrial agriculture, which is based on the use of multiple chemical products derived from non-natural synthesis. In more developed countries, a new idea of ecology linked to agricultural production has been increasingly developed and, for this reason, there has been a greater diffusion of differentiated agricultural models taking into consideration the environmental impact of product…
ANTIOXIDANT COMPOUNDS AND QUALITATIVE TRAITS IN EUROPEAN (PRUNUS DOMESTICA L.) AND JAPANESE (P. TRIFLORA L.) PLUM FRUITS AS AFFECTED BY COLD STORAGE
2010
The Italian territory is rich in fruit trees germplasm and in the last years many research programs have been carried out to characterize local cultivars and accessions for deepenings about them and enhancing the market agreement too. The Sicilian plum cultivars 'Sanacore' and 'Ariddo di core' and the Piedmontese plum cultivar 'Ramassin' were studied to highlight their qualitative traits including the nutraceutical properties. Moreover, since it is important to know in which way the qualitative parameters change during the storage period one more study was carried out by storing the fruits under modified atmosphere in the Tectrol ® system. The results evidenced very interesting aspects abou…
Agroecology as a challenge for the competitiveness of small scale agriculture
2018
L'agroecologia viene spesso presentata come un'alternativa agli attuali sistemi di produzione diffusi, sebbene ci siano molte domande sulla reale possibilità di una produzione alimentare sufficiente- mente elevata per una popolazione in crescita. L' analisi sviluppata in questo paper è basata sulla ricer- ca scientifica degli ultimi vent'anni e sulle l'attività delle ONG, dei movimenti degli agricoltori e delle organizzazioni governative di diversi contesti. L'obiettivo è quello di fornire un panorama dei princi- pali argomenti in discussione per una transizione agroecologica dei sistemi alimentari mondiali, individ- uando alcune sfide prioritarie e immaginando chi saranno i partecipanti qu…
THE ROLE OF DIVERSITY AND DIVERSIFICATION FOR RESILIENT AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS
2014
Biodiversity is a unique and precious heritage: generic but also cultural, social and economic. Its drastic curtailment, however, puts at risk the survival of local farming systems, and this is even more so in fragile socio-economic contexts where it risks translating into conditions of food insecurity and poverty. From the elementary level of the gene, rising in complexity up to the ecosystem, it is therefore a central element in defining first the resistance and then the resilience of the system, and by the first term meaning the degree of resistance to a disruption that distances it from the initial state of equilibrium and by the second the capacity of a system to return to guaranteeing…
Pomological and quality traits of mulberry (Morus spp.) germplasm from Gorno Badakhshan in the Western Pamir
2017
The local fruit biodiversity can represent a good opportunity to maintain the agriculture and to develop economies in "marginal" territory such as those in the mountain rural areas. The genetic diversity of the Morus spp. is little known in the Western Pamir mountains, so that the objective of the present study was to improve the knowledge of the polymorphism of the species in the different poorly explored Tajik valleys by investigating the main quantitative and qualitative traits. Materials and methods - Six selected sites of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) region were investigated through field measurement on morphological traits of mulberry trees (both from wild and cultiva…
Improvement of plum storage with modified atmosphere packaging
2010
Post-harvest supply chain is a critical point for agro-food marketing. The management of freshness in the storage is fundamental to maintain high profits in the agro-food sector to improve the distribution and to respond to retailers and consumers' requirements. Plums are considered to have a climacteric-ripening pattern, in which ethylene is the hormone responsible for ripening. Modified atmosphere (MA) storage is a method helpful to maintain the natural quality of fruits. MA added to low temperatures influence fruit metabolism and reduce ethylene production, weight losses, hardness of pulp, preserving vitamins and organic acids. The objective of this study was to increase the condition of…
Are Cover Crops Affecting the Quality and Sustainability of Fruit Production?
2021
The study of the interaction between fruit trees and cover crops has been addressed in numerous works over the last 50 years or more, evidencing the need to evolve from a productive orchard to an orchard that plays different ecosystem roles in terms of environmental sustainability rather than just productivity. This review, through an analysis of the scientific literature since the 1950s, highlights the development of sustainable soil management models in fruit tree orchards, mostly considering the relationship with fruit quality traits and with the ecosystem services that result from the adoption of cover crops, aiming at identifying and formulating technical recommendations in perennial o…
A Participatory Agrobiodiversity Conservation Approach in the Oases: Community Actions for the Promotion of Sustainable Development in Fragile Areas
2021
Rural development policies today include significant directions towards ecological transition and sustainability. Biodiversity plays a fundamental role, especially in fragile environments. The North African oases, for example, are socio-ecological structures with delicate balances in terms of natural resources, where the activation of participatory conservation approaches appears today to be very useful, aiming at long-lasting results. This type of approach was applied in the oasis of El Hamma, in Tunisia. The socio-ecological analysis was carried out through semi-structured interviews with different stakeholders of the oasis. The results were used to activate focus groups and to identify, …
A methodology for the sustainability assessment of agri-food systems: an application to the Slow Food Presidia project
2014
New and alternative models for agri-food production and consumption have brought up questions regarding the effects they have on local development processes in terms of the economic exploitation of rural areas as well as environmental, cultural, and social factors. The agri-food system proposed by the Slow Food (SF) Presidia Project, which focuses on farm-to-market systems for local, high-quality, sustainable products, can respond to the new and emerging needs of both rural and urban populaces via several approaches in addition to food production itself. However, evaluating these parameters is challenging. The aim of this study was to develop an indicator-based tool to monitor the sustainab…
Dietary Patterns at the Individual Level through a Nutritional and Environmental Approach: The Case Study of a School Canteen
2022
The public catering sector has important responsibilities in seeking a change toward more sustainable choices for many aspects related to the environmental impacts of their services. The environmental impact of production processes can be studied through life cycle assessment (LCA), which allows a greater awareness of choices and has rarely been applied to catering. In this work, we studied the impacts of two dishes (braised meat and cauliflower meatballs) in a school canteen, their impacts were studied using the daily energy requirement (expressed in kcal) as a functional unit. Global warming potential (GWP) and nonrenewable energy (NRE) were calculated starting from the supply of raw mate…
Evolution of qualitative characteristics during blueberry fruit storage in a modified atmosphere
2015
The objective of this work was to evaluate the performance of different films to maintain MAP conditions for storing ‘Duke’ blueberries by verifying the evolution of qualitative traits of berries. The fruits were picked manually, individually deposited in polyethylene baskets and immediately transferred (1 h) to the laboratory under chilled conditions (10°C). The experimental storage units consisted of a pallet bag of two different types of film, polyethylene (100 μm) and a biobased film derived from starch (50 μm). The O2 and CO2 transmission rates, measured according to the ASTM F 2622-08 and ASTM F 2476-05 methods at 38°C and 90% RH, were, 2642 and 10654 [cm3/(m2·24 h)], respectively, fo…
Evaluating the Sustainability in Complex Agri-Food Systems: The SAEMETH Framework
2015
During the last few years, the definition of sustainability and the translation of its general principles into practical and operative tasks have come into the foreground of scientific research and political agendas throughout the world. The understanding and the evaluation of the environmental, social and economic performances of complex agricultural food systems is probably the real challenge, and the design of more sustainable alternatives has been recognized as necessary for a correct territorial management. This study’s primary goal is the proposition of an interpretive structure “Sustainable Agri-Food Evaluation Methodology” (SAEMETH), able to guide the evaluation of the sustainabilit…
Consumer Preference Heterogeneity Evaluation in Fruit and Vegetable Purchasing Decisions Using the Best–Worst Approach
2019
This study assesses consumer preferences during fruit and vegetable (FV) sales, considering the sociodemographic variables of individuals together with their choice of point of purchase. A choice experiment was conducted in two metropolitan areas in Northwest Italy. A total of 1170 consumers were interviewed at different FV purchase points (mass retail chains and open-air markets) using a paper questionnaire. The relative importance assigned by consumers to 12 fruit and vegetable product attributes, including both intrinsic and extrinsic quality cues, was assessed by using the best&ndash
Community garden initiatives addressing health and well‐being outcomes: A systematic review of infodemiology aspects, outcomes, and target populations
2021
Previous research has suggested that activities such as community gardens could offer a wide range of health benefits. The aim of the article is to systematically review the available literature to analyse the magnitude of the phenomenon, the geographical distribution, and the main characteristics in terms of health outcomes and target populations. The search addresses the question whether the activity in community gardens improves health and well-being outcomes of individuals. From the total amount of 7226, 84 selected articles showed that:(1) up to 50% are published by U.S. universities or institutions; (2) up to 44% of the studies considered “community gardens” as the main activity of th…
Ecological and economic indicators for the evaluation of almond (Prunus dulcis l.) orchard renewal in sicily
2020
Globally, almond production is experiencing a growing trend thanks to a strong interest in the health, gastronomic, and industrial properties that are linked to the fruits and their derivatives. After a constant and marked decline in the second half of the last century, the Mediterranean Basin is thoroughly reassessing this crop, which provides significant results with a modern orchard management. The opportunity determined by the transition from traditional to modern systems have increased the interest in evaluating the different environmental impacts of the two cultivation models that still coexist today. In this work, through the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and an econ…
Quality indicators for modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) storage of high-quality European plum (Prunus domestica L.) cultivars.
2016
The use of quality indicators is crucial in selling plums in more distant markets and the evaluation of freshness through multiple index is fundamental to evaluate the goodness of the storage technique. In this study we evaluated the quality of two european plums cultivars ('Ramasin' and 'Ariddo di Core' with purple and yellow flesh colour respectively) after modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) storage, through the selection of the most appropriate indicators. The headspace gas composition, the flesh fruit firmness (FFF), the soluble solid content (SSC), the titratable acidity (TA), the colour and the chlorophyll content of plums wrapped with 5 different films (F1, F2, F3, F4 and F5) were e…
Sustainability for Food Consumers: Which Perception?
2019
A sustainable future for the community is one of the objectives established by the European Union Agenda 2030. Furthermore, sustainable consumption has been identified as one of the possible trajectories for sustainable development. It is for this reason that food production, distribution and consumption ways cannot be overlooked for sustainability achievement, as well as the consumer&rsquo
Consumer Attitudes and Preference Exploration towards Fresh-Cut Salads Using Best–Worst Scaling and Latent Class Analysis
2019
This research explored the preferences and buying habits of a sample of 620 consumers of fresh-cut, ready-to-eat salads. A best&ndash
Post-harvest Industrial Processes of Almond (Prunus dulcis L. Mill) in Sicily Influence the Nutraceutical Properties of By-Products at Harvest and Du…
2021
Almond cultivation in Sicily is experiencing a phase of great interest which is mainly concentrated in the development of specialized orchards, with irrigation and by adopting cultivars with high qualitative and quantitative performances. These are mostly Mediterranean genotypes with high fat content and hard or semi-hard shell, extremely different from the varieties of Californian diffusion. The development of the sector comprises the primary production of almonds but also a series of secondary products which often represent a burden for the company. From these considerations several researches have been developed with the aim of giving a value to these by-products through circular economy…
Almond Germplasm in Bostanlyk Area (Uzbekistan): Preservation and Exploitation
2014
Almond germplasm has been studied throughout the world with high diversity identified in the Mediterranean Basin. Each production region is based on specific types of cultivars, frequently without a real commercial strategy. For this reason we still have a wide range of particularly interesting almond germplasm, especially for genetic improvement. In some parts of the world, local germplasm is still interesting for a restricted almond industry, usually related to a local or internal consumption. In this paper we provide details about the almond industry in the traditional area of Bostanlyk, Uzbekistan. Since 2007 a specific approach to evaluate the local germplasm has been applied; the most…
An interpretive framework for assessing and monitoring the sustainability of school gardens
2016
School gardens are, increasingly, an integral part of projects aiming to promote nutritional education and environmental sustainability in many countries throughout the world. In the late 1950s, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) had already developed projects to improve the dietary intake and behavior through school and community gardens. However, notwithstanding decades of experience, real proof of how these programs contribute to improving sustainability has not been well-documented, and reported findings have mostly been anecdotal. Therefore, it is important to begin a process of collecting and monitoring data to quantify the results and …
Selection and micropropagation of valuable caper genotypes
2020
The high quality of the various biotypes present in the natural or cultivated state is one of the main features for caper production. Up to now, however, no selection activity has been carried out in order to identify the most suitable accessions for providing better quality products. In this paper, we report the first results of a selection of caper genotypes characterised by significant qualitative traits. A micropropagation protocol was evaluated in order to improve and allow the multiplication of the most promising Capparis spinosa L. subsp. spinosa genotypes, selected in Salina (Aeolian Islands), Sicily (Italy), in collaboration with the most important local growers.
Unlocking Plum Genetic Potential: Where Are We At?
2022
Plums are a large group of closely related stone fruit species and hybrids of worldwide economic importance and diffusion. This review deals with the main aspects concerning plum agrobiodiversity and its relationship with current and potential contributions offered by breeding in enhancing plum varieties. The most recent breeding achievements are revised according to updated information proceeding from relevant scientific reports and official inventories of plum genetic resources. A special emphasis has been given to the potential sources of genetic traits of interest for breeding programs as well as to the need for efficient and coordinated efforts aimed at efficaciously preserving the ric…