Technological Solutions for Implementing Sustainable Cereal-Based Value-Chains in High Mountain Areas

The project Brotweg (“The Bread path for/in mountain areas”) aimed to develop radical innovations for cereal cultivation in extreme mountain contexts, on land with very high slopes (even more than 80%) where cereal cultivation has so far been precluded to any form of mechanisation, resulting in abandonment due to high labour demands. The need to identify new development models for mountain agriculture, complementary to the currently prevailing zootechnical ones, has brought back the alternative of the “cereal chain” (cereal-flour-bread), compared to the “forage chain” (hay-milk-cheese) for the considerable advantages that the former entails in terms of reduced workload, investments and environmental impact. However, the implementation of the cereal chain requires clearing the main obstacles in the way of the adoption of suitable technological solutions for field mechanisation and conservation/management in small farms. The Brotweg project therefore envisages the development of prototypes to be used for (a) cereal cultivation, developing new machines for sowing and harvesting suitable for steep slopes; (b) post-harvest handling and storage of the grain directly at the farm; (c) grain processing with micro-bakery lines. The project was based on integrated evaluations capable of taking into account the economic and operational performance, safety conditions for operators, control of erosive phenomena and landscape protection, and levels of sustainability of the entire chain. The results of the project show the viability of new models of mountain agriculture, complementary to zootechnical production, and creates opportunities for new mountain livelihoods.