The situation is catastrophic. Farmers and breeders no longer have words to define the massacre that lies on the horizon. An unprecedented disaster. There is a lack of water and agricultural funds risk disappearing forever. It’s not just agriculture that is suffering, livestock farming is also on its knees. There has been no hay for the animals for weeks now. For the latter, a small glimmer of hope arrived yesterday, from the Region.
The Productive Activities commission (after the missed session last week) welcomed the measure to allocate vouchers for the purchase of fodder to Sicilian farmers.
Overall, this amounts to 10 million euros, allocated by the Sicilian Region to deal with the shortage of food for animals. What the farmers are asking for, however, is to act quickly. Entire livestock risk dying due to the lack of food and water.
Two systems collapsing
«We have been reiterating this for months – highlights the breeder Nino Russo – the situation is dramatic. We shouted our requests for help several times. Today we are exhausted, we no longer have the strength to carry on in these conditions. Finally the Regional Commission for Productive Activities has delivered what we have been waiting for for weeks. We have the feeling that it has not been understood how serious our problems are and how urgent the answers must be.”
It is the collapse of two systems: the agricultural one and the animal husbandry one. The repercussions of what we are experiencing today risk leaving deep wounds in the territories, which are difficult to heal.
«We regularly paid all the taxes we owed, including the IMU on agricultural land – highlights Giosuè Arcoria, agricultural entrepreneur and president of Confagricoltura Catania -. No suspension of taxes due from our Governments, despite the serious crisis we are facing. Personally, I experience a state of total bitterness and discouragement. There is no water and what is even more serious is that we don’t know where to get it from. The Catania plain is collapsing. Only very small, fortunate realities can be excluded from the drama, such as quota 56, in the Paternò area, with the water arriving from the crossroads of Ponte Barca. Too little, however, to satisfy all the needs of the agricultural funds of the other quotas. Also thanks to the Pozzillo dam, it is possible to satisfy some needs – he highlights -, but I repeat, it is always too little compared to the many needs. In this catastrophic situation, many farmers are deciding to abandon their agricultural funds, with the plants destined to die. We only hope that politicians really understand the situation we are experiencing. If we don’t act promptly, with concrete actions, everything will be useless. The end of summer may already be too late. We are dying.” Companies that have invested millions of euros to support agriculture now risk disappearing, forever. Sicily risks millions and millions of euros in damage, with a fatal blow to its primary sector.
