I am the Director of Research, Italian Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA), Research Centre for Agricultural and Environment (AA), Bari.

I am specialized in agro-ecosystem techniques to provide or enhance soil conservation and resource use in cropping systems, thus promoting the whole soil-plant system equilibrium. I am also specialized in nitrogen dynamics, efficiency, remobilization and balance in the soil-plant systems of different horticultural, industrial and cereal crops, acquiring a considerable experience either in the determination of plant nitrogen status, or in the study of the application of new organic sources (Municipal Solid Waste compost, Olive Waste Water, Olive pomace compost, on-farm compost, anaerobic digestate, etc.) in plant production, as alternative of mineral fertilizers, both in conventional and organic farming. I am studying the evaluation of environmental sustainability of agronomical and agro-ecological practices in crop production and in cropping systems. Author of more than 330 scientific papers, the 40% of which published in international peer-reviewed Journals (Scopus).

In the Bio4Food project my role is supporting the CREA team in all the activities planned, particularly monitoring the transformation of residues by composting process and the evaluation of agronomic performance of bioproducts.