CThe tightening of controls continues at the port of Bari on an Albanian ship loaded with tomato paste, precisely when the costs for tomato transplants have doubled in Puglia, but adequate contracts and prices are needed for industrial tomato producers for the 2024 campaign. This was reported by Coldiretti Puglia, in relation to the ICQRF’s targeted checks on ports and customs, to protect an economic sector for which at the moment there are no framework contracts or reference prices, but contracts must be stipulated with a reference price that is appropriately remunerative for agricultural businesses, reminds Coldiretti, in accordance with the provisions of the legislation on unfair practices.
There collecting signatures for a popular European law to guarantee transparency on the labels of all foods is one of the key themes of Coldiretti’s battle, with the abolition of the current customs code for the origin of foods which must become a priority, because it is not acceptable, explains Coldiretti Puglia, to assist to scenes like those experienced during the Brenner mobilization, where we saw frozen hams, tomato paste, fruit or vegetables or bakery preparations arriving and becoming, with the latest substantial transformation, Italian products in all respects
And in this scenario, the import of tomato paste from China is growing, which has mainly represented an Italian problem, with distortion of competition – Coldiretti Puglia insists – determined by a product that has come to “weigh”, in terms of fresh product, depending on the campaign, from 10 to 25% of the national production of industrial tomatoes.
A sea of tomatoes coming from a country where the production, phytosanitary, environmental and ethical rules are not the Italian and European ones, from territories that have often come to the fore – adds Coldiretti Puglia – for the exploitation of minorities and political prisoners. But in the last year the situation has changed, with strong growth in imports also in the rest of the EU. Projections for 2023, based on data made available by Eurostat, say that imports in the other 26 EU countries would essentially double.
At the same time, faced with the high cultivation costs, the climatic – not least drought – and phytosanitary unknowns, the international uncertainties, including the problems linked to the Suez Canal, the surface area that each individual company will invest in tomatoes must be carefully evaluated, not there being references to the prices that can be paid by the industry.
Puglia holds almost all of the tomato production within a supply chain in Southern Italy, reports Coldiretti Puglia, based on the study commissioned from the University of Foggia, with 15,527,500 quintals of industrial tomatoes on an area of 17,170 hectares products. The province of Foggia is the undisputed market leader and represents the largest national production basin – insists Coldiretti Puglia – with an average annual surface area of 15,000 hectares and with a production of industrial tomatoes of around 14,250,000 quintals (1.4 million tonnes).
At EU level it is therefore necessary to extend to all 27 member countries the obligation to indicate the origin of the tomato (place of cultivation) used in derivatives, an obligation in force in Italy thanks to the action of Coldiretti, and to adopt the principle of reciprocity of EU economic, environmental and ethical rules, even for imported products, blocking the entry of products that do not comply with them.
