Torre Lama and Castel Volturno

by Raffaella Russo Spena

Among the auxiliary facilities of the Department of Agriculture of the Federico II University of Naples, two farms located in Bellizzi (province of Salerno) and Castelvolturno (province of Caserta) are particularly relevant for their level of specialisation and for their research and technical experimentation objectives in the field of agronomy and zootechnics.

In 1924, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of the Kingdom of Italy acquired property of the agricultural and zootechnical farm known as 'Torre Lama' for scientific and educational purposes, and assigned it to the laboratory of the Istituto Superiore di Agricoltura (Higher Institute of Agriculture) in Portici.

After almost a century, the experimental centre is still active today and represents one of the best in the agri-food and zootechnical sector. Its scientific objectives involve the development of research programmes through the use of innovative, state-of-the-art technologies.

The company extends over an area of 49 hectares near Bellizzi, in the province of Salerno, along state road 18, in the section that connects Pontecagnano to Battipaglia, and is part of the Comprensorio di Bonifica Destra Sele (Destra Sele Land Reclamation District). It has several buildings, the most important of which are an office block, a conference room, a canteen and a guesthouse with twelve rooms.

Facilities directly serving institutional purposes include a modern heat-ventilated greenhouse made of steel and glass. In addition, irrigation systems characterised by a high degree of automation - fertigators - contribute to agricultural production. The results of this particularly innovative research activity are published in prestigious international and national journals. The centre regularly hosts students from the department as part of its teaching activities.

The Department of Agriculture also has another facility in the north-west of the metropolitan city of Naples, the Experimentation Centre-Pilot Farm in Castelvolturno, in the province of Caserta. Originally conceived as an agricultural chemistry laboratory, the centre now allows researchers to develop scientific investigations and field trials in the agricultural sector.

It is divided into three functional areas, the Farm Centre, about fourteen hectares in size, the Podere Fiorillo, covering about nine hectares, and the Vecchio Campo, about twenty-two hectares large, which include the equipment and facilities required to carry out scientific and experimental activities.

The institutional research objectives involve the application of innovative strategies, with the aim of implementing tools that enable the development of new concepts of sustainable agriculture, which today appear increasingly relevant in the national and international economic context where agriculture is seen as a strategic sector both for the protection of the environment and the territory and for agri-food development.

Facilities at the Castelvolturno centre also include a meteorological station, which is part of the wider national network of the UCEA (Central Office of Agricultural Ecology) of the MASAF (Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry).

In addition to the specific aspects concerning study and research activities, the two detached experimental centres of the Department of Agriculture are characterized by the attention paid to the care and protection of the environmental and landscape context in which they are inserted and to which they contribute, with a wise balance between built volumes and agricultural and livestock spaces.

From the volume "Passeggiando per la Federico II" (second updated edition) edited by Alessandro Castagnaro - photographs by Roberto Fellicò - FedOAPress