Thanks to her work on the reorganization of food and energy systems, Lamiaa Chab (University of Tuscia) received a special mention in the non-agricultural thesis category at the first edition of the AgriFood Future Award.
The award was presented last May 9 in Salerno during AgriFood Future Research, a side event of the national AgriFood Future forum. Promoted by Unioncamere in collaboration with the Salerno Chamber of Commerce, the event has established itself in just two editions as one of the leading platforms for discussion on the future of agri-food systems.
Under the scientific direction of Professor Alex Giordano, the AgriFood Future event in 2024 and 2025 gave rise to a series of meetings between businesses, institutions, and trade associations to foster a dialogue between technology, community, and food production based on the concept of Foodsystem 5.0. This provided a concrete stimulus to ensure that innovations do not drive our future, but rather that technological solutions secure sustainable development from an environmental, social, and economic perspective.
The AgriFood Future Award aimed to provide further impetus by partnering with Image Line to recognize research projects capable of proposing innovation designed to bridge the gap between scientific production and the needs of the agri-food system. These are concrete studies that tackle real-world problems and propose actionable solutions for the industry.
Chab’s work, titled ‘Nexus of Renewable Energy, Agriculture, and Forestry: Synergies and Challenges for a Sustainable Energy Transition,‘ earned a special mention in the Non-Agricultural category for highlighting the need to align energy, agricultural, and forestry policies to optimize land use and improve ecosystem resilience.
| Challenges Addressed | Proposed Solutions | Involved Companies |
| Necessity to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. Dependence on fossil fuel sources and poor integration between agriculture, forestry, and renewable energy. Lack of coordinated strategies for a sustainable energy transition in the agricultural and forestry sectors. Difficulty in quantifying the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy within the agro-forestry sector. | Econometric analysis of the interaction between renewable energy, agriculture, and forestry across nine countries (France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, and South Africa). Use of the DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) framework to examine the environmental and economic factors of the energy transition. Highlighting the importance of bioenergy as a solution to reduce $CO_{2}$ emissions and stimulate economic growth. Identification of synergies between renewable energy and agricultural value added, with a focus on cross-sector integration policies. | Agro-forestry companies looking to invest in bioenergy and sustainable energy solutions. Renewable energy firms with an interest in the agricultural and forestry sectors. Government organizations and research institutions developing environmental sustainability policies. Agri-food producers with high energy consumption seeking energy efficiency solutions. |