The interventions recently announced by the Regional Government, with the assignment of vouchers for the purchase of hay, if on the one hand respond to a fair need, even if very partial, are on the other hand certainly far from responding to the real needs of the Sicilian agricultural and agri-food world.
And even the ministerial provision allocating 20 million euros is late and insufficient. There is a need, without any ifs or buts, for greater elasticity in the CMO measures, for a more flexible management of planting rights and the restructuring of vineyards; support for access to credit, involving local banks such as mutual banks. A banking moratorium is urgently needed. It is no coincidence that many entrepreneurs were unable to comply with the deadlines at the end of May, starting with the payment of the f24.
Confcooperative Fedagripesca Sicilia, which brings together cooperatives in the agricultural, wine, citrus, fruit and livestock sectors, which bring together a very significant part of Sicilian farmers, for this reason urges the President of the Region, Hon. Renato Schifani, to adopt the immediately operational measures against the Drought Emergency in Sicily already suggested to the Government through the platform already officially transmitted to the Government.
In particular, the president of the regional Confcooperative Fedagripesca, Nino Accept and the Delegate for Agricultural Issues, Alessandro Chiarelli relaunch the request to intervene immediately on the six points identified in the aforementioned platform, and in particular: 1. Sicily Red Zone; 2. Credit to businesses; 3. Elastic application of the CAP; 4. Measures to combat drought; 5. Integrated sustainability; 6. Moratorium on mortgages.
For this reason, Confcooperative Fedagripesca once again urges the convening of a very urgent meeting from which real and concrete signals can be given to the Sicilian cooperatives which risk enormous damage which will have repercussions on the farmer members with the significant loss of opportunities for marketing the product and the jeopardizing of the same survival of the over 142 thousand agricultural businesses active in Sicily.
Place: Palermo
