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From next September, 40 thousand tons of apples will travel by cable car through the Dolomite landscapes of the Val di Non, reducing 12 thousand kilometers per year, currently traveled by motor vehicles.
To undermine the painful record of our country, stuck for decades in the eternal debate on how to decongest road freight traffic (again increased by 4% in 2022, according to Eurostat), the project conceived by Melinda, winner of the Pnrr tender dedicated to best ideas for the development of agri-food logistics, which makes 800 million euros available, of which 500 are destined for businesses, 150 million for markets, another 150 million for ports.
Unique in the world, the infrastructure proposed by the consortium which brings together over 4 thousand families of Trentino apple growers, with a turnover of 300 million euros, will connect the Predaia processing room with the Rio Maggiore mine. It will cross the dolomite rock extraction quarries, until reaching the underground cells – the pride of the Melinda Consortium – where the apples are stored. Here artificial intelligence algorithms are able to predict optimal quantities of energy and temperatures for the shelf life of the product: it is no coincidence that these cells were presented to the European Parliament as a good practice of environmental and economic sustainability.
«The apple cableway project is a virtuous example of how Pnrr funds should be invested», said the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, who hosted the presentation of the project at home, at the ministry. «It guarantees an organizational advantage, responds to the needs of a complex mountain area, demonstrates the importance of intelligent and far-sighted investments in the agricultural sector and, not a secondary element, ensures environmental benefits».
Ranking in second place out of a total of over one hundred proposals that will access the Pnrr funds, the project will benefit from a non-repayable contribution of just over 4 million euros, which will serve to cover 40% of the overall expenditure of 10.6 million necessary to build the plant, including 150 thousand euros of investments in research and development.