Tough stance against regional politics by Giuseppe Mangone, president of the trade association “Free Farmers – Anpa Calabria”: «The Agriculture Decree recently approved by the Government provides for various initiatives in favor of the agricultural sector and commits resources in almost all sectors, some even in an innovative way. This is the case, for example, of the important changes to Legislative Decree 198/2021 on unfair practices to protect the agricultural supply chain with respect to the dominance of large-scale retail trade and with respect to the violation of the law in relations between companies in the agricultural and food supply chain, or the choice to avoid ground-mounted photovoltaic systems which today would have damaged important ecosystems and traditional regional crops as well as taking us away from community guidelines. The same goes for tackling the blue crab problem, the wild boar problem and the serious crisis due to African swine fever and other zoonoses affecting cattle and sheep. The urgent interventions to deal with the economic crisis of agricultural, fishing and aquaculture businesses and those relating to the problems of the kiwi and vine sectors do not take into account what was expected regarding the damage and therefore the compensation relating to the climate crisis of the last year for the bergamot of Reggio Calabria, which affects more than 1,500 hectares and hundreds of agricultural families and historically constitutes the economic and rural base of 50 municipalities of the metropolitan city of Reggio”.
“In November – continues Mangone – the regional government policy together with the representatives of other local authorities and the Bergamot Consortium and with the presence of local parliamentarians, loudly launched and took for granted the imminent approval of the tender for the recognition of the damage to the bergamot production chain and therefore of the expected refreshments in terms of contributions from the Government and the Calabria Region. In fact, nothing has happened, the regional discussions with the Ministry have stalled and no concrete response has been obtained: to date everyone has forgotten about the famous relief measures for the bergamot crisis, starting with politics, which in this case should have intervened with the regional structures. Probably for some the Cosenza area is always more important than the Reggio area.”
