by Tarek Allali

Prof. Francesca Galli and Dr. Tarek Allali from PAGE group took part in the SAGA kick-off meeting, held in at the University of Pisa, at the Polo Piagge, on July 7th. The PAGE members contributed to the discussion on the project’s socio-economic and participatory dimensions.

SAGA (Salicornia Genotyping for Sustainable Soil and Farming: From Genes to Agroecology) is a project funded by the PRIMA (Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area) programme, which aims to explore the potential of Salicornia-based agroecological systems in Mediterranean contexts affected by soil salinity, climate pressure and the need for more resilient farming solutions.

Together with the University of Pisa, the project coordinator, the other partners come from the University of Algarve (Portugal), the University of Ankara (Turkey), and the University of Tunis El-Manar (Tunisia).

During the meeting, the PAGE team presented the work planned under WP1, with a focus on stakeholder engagement, barriers to agroecology adoption, training needs, and the connection between research outputs and practical uptake.

A second presentation focused on the role of Living Labs in SAGA, framing them as multi-actor platforms where farmers, researchers, advisors, market actors and policymakers can co-design locally relevant solutions.

The Living Lab session also included a participatory Scoping Canvas exercise, through which partners started reflecting on the main challenges, relevant actors, local knowledge gaps, assumptions to test, links with Salicornia selection and demonstration sites, and first concrete actions for the coming months. The canvas outcomes highlighted the importance of improving technical knowledge, stakeholder mapping, visibility, market information and coordination between scientific work and local farming realities.

The day concluded with a field visit to a wild Salicornia growing area in San Rossore Park, near Pisa. This visit provided a concrete opportunity to connect the project discussions with the ecological and territorial context in which Salicornia naturally occurs, reinforcing the importance of linking scientific research, field observation and stakeholder engagement.