Pistoia Nursery District re elects president Francesco Ferrini for second three year term

The Ornamental Nursery District of Pistoia (Distretto Vivaistico Ornamentale di Pistoia) has re-elected president Francesco Ferrini for a second three-year term, effective 1 July 2024.

Ferrini, Full Professor of Arboriculture and Urban Forestry at the University of Florence, was first elected as president in July 2021, successfully navigating the organisation through the Covid-19 crisis while kick-starting a three-year strategy focused on a strengthened dialogue with institutions and association at home and from abroad.

The voting took place at GEA Pistoia on 1 July 2024.

The focus of his new strategy is to put Pistoia’s nursery stock production on the world map and drive forward member service improvements. It also involves initiatives to recycle plastic pots from nurseries and build a phytosanitary self-control laboratory aka ‘Pistoia Fitolab’ by 2025.

Pistoia is Italy’s epicentre of nursery stock production. It boasts more than 5,000 hectares of nurseries specialised in outdoor plants sprawling across five municipalities in the Pistoia province: Agliana, Montale, Pistoia, Quarrata and Serravalle Pistoiese.

Pistoia is Italy’s epicentre of nursery stock production.

Ferrini’s re-election as president of the district took place, with a unanimous vote of those present, during the district assembly held on Monday, 1 July evening at the headquarters of the GEA – Green Economy and Agriculture research centre, in Pistoia. The mandate will last three years, until July 2027.

As Ferrini recalled in his introductory speech, in which he summarized what was done during his first term in office, there are three main projects carried out in this three-year period by the Pistoia Nursery District in cooperation with Associazione Vivaisti Italiani, the District’s managing body.

The most important, which should see the light of day at GEA by the end of 2025, is the Phytosanitary Self-Control Laboratory, which “aims to improve the quality and safety of plant production through a self-control system based on laboratory analyses”. The consortium that will manage it, ‘Pistoia Fitolab’, has already been set up and a request was recently made to the municipality of Pistoia for permission to build it.

The second major project mentioned by Ferrini in his speech is ‘Da vaso a vaso’ (From pot to pot): the agreement for a short supply chain for recycling plastic vases in the District’s nurseries, which AVI has just recently announced will start next September.

Ferrini is winner of the 2019 ISA Award of Merit and the 2009 Fabio Rizzi Award. The latter recognises ‘commitment in research and dissemination of technical-scientific knowledge in the field of nursery and ornamental arboriculture, in constant contact with producers all over the world’.

The third, the most demanding from the investment and infrastructure point of view and still at an early stage, is the project for a ‘Green Aqueduct’ (Acquedotto verde) to recover and transport to Pistoia territory a portion of the waste water from the San Colombano purification plant (located near Florence) for irrigation purposes. This project, as stressed by Ferrini, could guarantee the Pistoia area, not just the District, against the risk of drought in the future. A risk that does not seem to be present this year, but which could reoccur in the future.

In addition to these three major projects, Prof. Ferrini dwelt on the activities carried out for professional training, which has been “a fundamental pillar of our mandate”. “We have collaborated and will collaborate even more closely in the future,” said Ferrini, “with schools, universities and research institutes to offer training and refresher courses to nurserymen, with the aim of improving technical skills and promoting the adoption of sustainable practices. Our commitment to training has helped to create a new generation of nurserymen who are prepared and aware of the challenges ahead.”