Padova is among the most ancient cities in the northern Italy. It counts 209.420 inhabitants on an area of 92,85 kmq. Its strategic location, alongside river Brenta, has always been a melting pot of people and cultures, enriching and placing the city as one of the most active economic and cultural exchange centres in the North-Eastern area of Italy and Veneto Region. The inclusion of Padova Giotto’s frescos in the UNESCO World Heritage, together with Padova election as European Volunteering Capital, but also Capital of Green Innovation, is placing the city under constant international visibility.
Padova is already set to become a metropolitan hub by 2030, where the crucial assets to prioritize are innovation, interconnection, sustainability and social inclusion. Padova Municipality is currently operating in several macro sectors for a more sustainable growth of the city that pays attention to resources, social well-being and economy, namely i) mobility and micro mobility, ii) healthcare, iii) well-being, iv) urban culture and renovation, v) parks and recreation, vi) security and cybersecurity. The reported pillars are interconnected and each of them takes advantage of a particular sector of the Padova’s community and its innovation network, in a concerted effort of local stakeholders from private and public sector and the associations. These macro areas are all in line with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 Agenda, where every action proposed by the Municipality combines local needs and global sustainable requirements.
Padova is one of 100 European pilot cities selected by the European Commission in the NetZeroCities project, with the ambitious mission of achieving climate neutrality by 2030.
Therefore, the Municipality's primary goal is to drastically reduce its CO2 emissions by implementing and enhancing the actions included in its SECAP.
In particular, the Municipality intends to profoundly renew the public and private building real estate property, enhance the use of energy from renewable sources, strengthen electric public transport service and soft mobility, reduce waste production also through circular economy strategies, implement a food policy and implement climate change adaptation policies, especially related to urban green.
All the above-mentioned actions are designed in view of a climate neutrality, and also to build an increasingly inclusive and open community, highlighting the fact that the events of the last few years worsened economic hardship and inequalities in the society and that acting to protect the vulnerable and ensuring a good quality of life for all is the primary task of a municipality.
Regarding the actions in terms of adaptation policies, Padova Municipality intends to enhance urban agriculture and strengthen the virtuous relationship between urbanized and agricultural settings, in continuity with the strategies of its Green Plan approved in 2022.
Within this framework Padova Municipality works towards the Basso Isonzo Agricultural Park, one of the main green wedges of the Padova territorial-environmental system, located in a strategic position - 500 meters from the 16th-century Walls. This area, lapped by the course of the Bacchiglione River, is as a large cultivated open territory of about 100 hectares in the heart of an area characterized by widespread residential settlements.
There are already several farms in the Agricultural Park, including organic ones; in addition, the Municipality owns an old rural building, now abandoned, and about 10 hectares of farmland in the same area. The Municipality, through a participatory process, intends to renovate the building and entrust it together with the adjoining farmland to young farmers for the creation of a multifunctional community urban farm. The farming activity, which is to adopt the principles and techniques of agroecology, will also include social and educational agriculture activities. Thus, the initiative is a nature-based solution that aims to develop new vocational skills for young people by merging agricultural and social aspects through, for example, job placement of disadvantaged people on the farm. In addition, agroecology is an approach that involves the sustainable use of land while promoting climate change adaptation in the agricultural sector and the development of innovative strategies both commercially and for urban community engagement. In this sense, Padova Municipality intends to promote short supply chains following the model of community-supported agriculture with the aim to develop a circular economy.
Furthermore, the urban farm will also catalyse the territorial animation service through social, educational and cultural initiatives that enhance urban agriculture and the context of the Basso Isonzo Agricultural Park.
This initiative takes the shape of an innovative pilot project of the strategy on urban agriculture in Padova. At the same time it establishes some general principles that can be applied in other territorial contexts and will hopefully be able to serve as an example to develop and promote a new model of multifunctional and sustainable peri-urban agriculture for the city.
Therefore, the Municipality of Padova is interested in joining any consortium that can help develop the project described above.
For additional info, please refer to:
Davide Primucci