In the next few days, the Council of Ministers will decree the recognition of a state of natural disaster due to the death of kiwis in the province of Latina. This was announced by the councilor for agriculture of the Lazio Region Giancarlo Righini at the opening of the 37th edition of the Mostra Agricola Campoverde, the national agricultural fair which will take place until 1 May in the Aprilia sulla Pontina exhibition area in southern Campoverde.
«The Pontine territory is made up of absolute excellences and authentic protagonists who deserved this support, expected for some years, and who until today had not received the right recognition», said councilor Righini, recalling that Aprilia was the first Municipality to decide on the request for a state of natural disaster for the kiwi, together with the other municipalities in the area, including Cisterna, Latina, Sermoneta, Cori, Sabaudia.
The dieback occurs with the loss of all the leaves which, in the summer period, appears on several plants or on the entire surface of the orchard and leads to the death of the plant without the possibility of being able to recover it, over the course of one/two years from the beginning of its manifestation. Despite studies, the causes have not yet been fully ascertained but it is a multifactorial disaster: pathogens, soil moisture management, climate change.
Today, the kiwi’s death affects all cultivated varieties, green pulp and yellow pulp first and foremost. Lazio, with around 10,000 hectares of areas cultivated with kiwis, is the region that has lost the most production area, around 4,000 hectares according to data from the Fruit and Vegetable Service Centre. The data for Cisterna, where almost 80% of regional production is concentrated, is more serious: losses are at least 60% of the harvest. In Aprilia there are 3 thousand hectares cultivated with kiwis.
If the kiwi in Lazio produced 1.4 million kiwis with an economic return of 280 million and 140,000 working days, in 2022 production fell to 560 thousand quintals and 112 million euros, with 84,000 working days lost. There is no data available yet for 2023, but the trend is for the situation to worsen. The only tools available to growers are two rootstocks, the “Bounty 71” and the “Sim 1”, but they are still being tested.
«In the next few hours there will be this important provision regarding agriculture which will allow those who have invested significant resources to breathe a sigh of relief», added Righini. «Our thanks go to the farmers for the extraordinary activity they continue to carry out: the Lazio Region, as well as the national government, is at the farmers’ side and demonstrates it with the constant support for the sector, also made up of extraordinary measures».
The Region responded to the growers’ SOS requests by asking the Ministry of Agriculture to approve the proposal to declare the damages caused by the death exceptional, which for 2023 alone amount to over 215 million euros. For the Municipalities of the Province of Rome, a total damage of 50,038,560 euros and 10,306,000 to the company structures was estimated. For the province of Latina, in the municipalities affected, the damage to agricultural production was estimated at 113,103,000 euros while the damage to company structures amounted to 41,819,539 euros. A death, therefore, which weighs heavily on the productive world and which for the consumer translates into spending without the now traditional kiwis produced in the region and with a necessity: the increase in the quotas imported from abroad.
Lazio is the first region in Italy for kiwi production with 33%, while Italy is the third largest producer in the world after China and New Zealand. Since 2004, the Pontine kiwi has been protected by the Kiwi di Latina PGI denomination, which is obtained only from plants of the Hayward variety of Actinidia Deliciosa.
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