CRIME: COLDIRETTI PUGLIA, ANOTHER VILE DAMAGE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE; DRY OLIVE GROVE WITH ENTIRE WATER SYSTEM CUT OUT
When the grip of the heat shows no signs of easing and there is no water to irrigate the fields and water the animals in the stables, the damage continues in the countryside with a specialized olive grove left dry because all the pipes of a system were cut cleanly water in a rural area between Bitetto, Grumo and Sannicandro. The news was given by Coldiretti Puglia, after the detailed report of the vile act suffered by an agricultural entrepreneur from Grumo Appula, yet another in a long series of episodes which in recent months has even led to a real massacre of wildly cut productive olive trees and scarred.
Crime – continues Coldiretti Puglia – operates through theft of agricultural equipment and vehicles, racketeering, exploitation, extortion, or with the so-called extortion also in the form of imposition of labor or transport or security services on agricultural companies, damage to plants and of the same crops, attacks, usury, clandestine slaughter, gangmastering and fraud against the European Union.
Crime destroys the years-long work of olive growers in a few moments and, with intermediation, eliminates competition and the free legal market, suffocating honest entrepreneurship, also compromising – Coldiretti reports – in a very serious way the safety of the countryside and the quality of the products, with the indirect effect of profoundly undermining the image of Italian products and the value of the Made in Italy brand.
The world of agri-food production is under attack – explains Coldiretti Puglia – because it represents a great economic and social reality around which a notable related industry develops and which can represent, if appropriately exploited, the engine of widespread development for the entire region which in 2023 it reached, despite the threats of climate and drought, the value of over 4 billion euros in gross salable production.
But petty crime makes the daily life of entrepreneurs in the countryside difficult, with raids having been a continuous phenomenon for years and forcing farmers to keep watch at night, but episodes are also being recorded in broad daylight. Thefts of iron, steel, copper, electric and telephone cables in the countryside are multiplying – concludes Coldiretti Puglia – with agricultural companies remaining switched off and isolated by telephone, while irrigation wells remain closed, jeopardizing agricultural production which needs waterfall.
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