“A year has passed and many companies devastated by the flood of May 2023 still find themselves at the starting line, because only in the last few days have the definitive, hopefully, ordinances been released regarding the possible refunds of what has already been paid or for the financing of burdensome works in financial terms to get one’s land and the overlying agricultural crops back on track and fully efficient”, these are the words of Giovanni Gualtieri, President of the Order of Agronomists and Forestry Doctors of the Province of Ravenna.
“Many farmers, both from the hills and the plains, found each other from the first months blocked in fully evaluating the damage inflicted on their land for the purposes of possible reimbursements and/or financing and to their crops from the waters that rushed down from our hills or overflowed with unexpected fury from the riverbeds of our hanging streams/rivers, both for the provisional nature of the first ordinances which did not take into due account the many particularities of the agricultural world of Romagna, particularities which if on the one hand they differentiate the individual agricultural activities inherent in the territory, on the other they determine their considerable valorization, not only in monetary terms, but also in terms of care of the landscape, preservation of the territory, both in the attempt to reduce them to simple schemes the possible operations recognized as valid for the purposes of the same ordinances are explained by the Order.
Gualtieri continues: “Today, agricultural companies can act according to the correct dictates of the latest ordinances, hoping not to have to further chase the commissioner structure and the other sectors of the public administration involved in this enormous and extraordinary work of reconstruction, reorganization of the territory, treatment of wounds inflicted by water in every area, agricultural, artisanal, industrial. Without forgetting how much the population and entrepreneurial activities felt the lack of careful and real territorial planning that took into account the peculiar characteristics of the territories”.
“Because by territorial planning we must not mean the mere discipline that regulates the use of the territory and the organization and development of the human activities that take place there, which involves the geological, architectural and engineering aspects, but the long-term political , not dictated by the emergency, which knows how to integrate the different peculiar aspects of each individual territory and the individual precious skills, from those of geologists, architects and engineers to those of agronomists and forestry doctors – underlined by the Order – . Because when it is necessary to proceed with the reforestation of our mountains and hills, it is the Forestry Doctor who is competent in the matter and not others, because when we hear that we no longer need to consume soil or, vice versa, exploit it conveniently, the Agronomist Doctor is the expert in the matter of agricultural land which has the last word. Unfortunately, there are still few municipalities and bodies in our province that have an Agronomist or Forestry Doctor on their staff for the care of the territory and landscape”.
The President concludes: “Given the release in recent days of the preliminary special plan which must be applied in the areas affected by the calamitous events of May 2023 and which provides for the definition of the guidelines for the mitigation of hydrogeological risk and the subsequent identification of structural interventions and non-structural on situations of difficulty, the Order of Agronomists and Forestry Doctors of Ravenna once again declares itself available for discussion with the relevant authorities. On several occasions we have relaunched the “cry of pain” which still rises today from many parts of Romagna for a definitive solution to the various problems and situations brought to light by the calamitous events of last year, so that it can return to the fields and between the artisanal and industrial activities, the serenity of a year ago”.
