The tour focused on the region of Tuscany, which provides the opportunity to dive into different industries (crop, livestock, food and agri-tourism) blended with unique cultural and humanistic attractions.
The tour was dense with farm visits.
It spanned from hi-tech greenhouses to minimum-input silvo-pastoral livestock farms, to aquaculture, to pasta-making with heirloom wheat varieties. All this has been pulled together keeping best agricultural practices in mind and in order to give the participants a line-up that could not be found from other sources.
Specifically, visits included:
- three dairy farms (cattle, sheep, bufalo) that sell a variety of products,
- two cereal farms, that market pasta and rice though direct sale and on-farm restaurant,
- a silvo-pastoral beef cattle & hog farms, with butcher and charcuterie shop,
- two Chianina beef cattle farms, with on-farm restaurant,
- a high-tech 30-acres greenhouse, that produces tomato, strawberry and micro-greens,
- a cooperative aquaculture facility, with a restaurant that serves the raised fish,
- a micro-brewery, that grows its own barley,
- a winemakers association tasting and marketing room.