Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria (CREA)

The Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA) is the leading Italian research organization  dedicated to the agri-food supply chains. CREA operates as a legal entity under public law, and is supervised by the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies (MiPAAF). The scientific activity covers the analysis of agricultural economics, agricultural crops, livestock, fishery, forestry, agri-industry, green chemistry, food science and socioeconomics. The know-how of CREA ranges from agricultural economics to rural development topics and territorial studies; from competitiveness of agri-food system to the links between agriculture and society; from plant and animal genetics and physiology to mechanics and robotics; from innovative techniques for the management of sustainable productions, including practices to improve soil fertility and plant protection, to silviculture, under natural and cultivated ecosystems, and livestock farming; from agri-food industry processes to the nutritional properties of foods and dietary aspects. CREA employs over 2.000 people organized in 12 research Centers.

CREA participates to hundreds of national and international projects as partner for a total budget of more than 300 million € in the last 10 years. CREA AN has been involving in several national and international nutrition research projects grants in FP7, H2020, JPI, PRIMA, National and Regional projects.

It includes experts in agricultural crops, livestock, fishery, forestry, agri-industry, socioeconomics, food science, nutrition, biochemistry, epidemiology, consumer sciences allowing a holistic and trans-disciplinary approach. The research team of CREA has the capacity to reduce potential problems evolving during the development of research activities as evidenced by the high number of successful projects completed.

Scientists of CREA, beside the participation in the project research consortia, are partners of many national and international scientific organisations and networks either representing CREA or Italy as a whole. A list of most relevant international networks is the following: EuroFIR AISBL - Associazione Internazionale no-profit; European Sensory Network (ESN); Nutrigenomic Organization (NUGO); Sustainability Food System Network (SFSN); Network on Food Consumption Data (EFSA); Mediterranean Multistakeolders Platform on Sustainable Food System; Codex Alimentarius; European Public Health Nutrition Alliance-EPHNA, rete dei Centri di Nutrizione Europei. Cluster Agri-Food Nazionale (CL.A.N.); Italian Focal Point of EFSA as an Art. 36 listed institution; FIL/IDF Italian Committee in the New Work Items 22/11 School milk as part of school feeding programmes in sustainable food systems; METROFOOD-RI - Infrastructure for promoting Metrology in Food and Nutrition is a new distributed Research Infrastructure aimed to promote scientific excellence in the field of food quality and safety. https://www.metrofood.eu/; One Planet Network 10FYP Sustainable Food Systems program (UNEP).