MULTIRES è un’azienda agricola e silvicolturale orientata alla produzione di servizi ecosistemici.
WHO WE ARE
ORIGINS
MULTIRES was established as a family-based agricultural and forestry company, started by the Rugani-Bencini family in 2020 following the purchase of a rural area of approximately 24 hectares. That is located in the north-east of the territory of the Municipality of Siena
The acronym MULTIRES stems for “MULTIple Resources and Ecosystem Services”. It does indicates the multiplicity and diversity of products supplied by the company in the form of ecological goods and services. Resources comes from a sustainable use of the Natural Capital, the preservation of which is guaranteed through careful management of the biodiversity and ecological functions of the agro-forestry ecosystem.
At the time of the land acquisition, consisting of approximately 13 ha of forest, 2 ha of olive grove and 9 ha of agricultural land, the entire area lay in a state of progressive abandonment: the oak woodlandhistorically coppiced and managed by a gamekeeper as a reserve and animal repopulation area, had not undergone paths maintenance and clearing work for over fifteen years; about 100 olive trees in the area, most of which had not been pruned for at least ten years, were increasing the number of dry branches and turning into dense and tangled ‘bushes’ that were poorly productive and infested with bramble; approximately only 2 hectares of agricultural land were in good conditions, although not optimal for sowing (the last sunflowers cultivation dated 2006); finally, in the remaining portion of uncultivated and abandoned land-once a well-established agricultural land-, the vegetation had grown unevenly, with a predominance of brambles and brooms (Genisteae) up to three metres high.
OUR PROJECT
Considering the abovementioned land quality context, the volume of production of ecological goods and services is still rather limited, but we have a promising long-term challenge…
MULTIRES is essentially a project for the restoration and valorisation of natural capital, and the innovation in the field of environmental, social and economic sustainability at the micro scale. Over the next few years, the company aims to re-establish several productive values within the entire agroforestry area through a series of measures that will recover, manage, conserve, and improve ecological functions. It is expected that the supply and diversity of the ecosystem services thus provided will grow rapidly in both quantitative and qualitative terms, allowing for virtuous mechanisms of circularity, reuse and recycling of resources, as well as drastically reducing the production system’s dependence on external sources.
