Quick Take — Half a million foreign workers in Italy in three years, but the number does not solve the delays in the camps

“…The main agricultural associations, from Coldiretti to Confagricoltura, express satisfaction with the three-year planning, but remain critical on the operational front.“To date, few workers have entered Italy after the click day in February, while harvesting operations have already begun months ago,” reads a note from Confagricoltura. Coldiretti calls for the possibility of submitting applications at any time of the year, with the support of the trade associations, to truly respond to seasonal needs. Because the point, they all say, is not how many workers arrive, but when’.

We were already talking about this in 2020, at the time of Covid-19, in “ The future of the Italian agri-food chain must be built together. With Mario Gasbarrino

Quick Take — Tuscany: in less than 20 years it has lost half of its durum wheat cultivated areas

from 96,000 hectares in 2006 to 43,000 in 2024… “The crisis in cereals can be explained simply as follows: costs exceed revenues,’ says the president of Coldiretti Toscana, Letizia Cesani. ‘Today, with the volatility of prices, farms cannot even break even. In a country where a plate of pasta is never missing from the table, it would be natural to think that this is an important crop, but it is not so. In 2023, imports of Canadian wheat, for which glyphosate is used in the pre-harvest phase – glyphosate is a carcinogenic herbicide – increased by 68%’… On this topic read here

Nelson Rockefeller. Building supermarkets in Venezuela: the beginning of a worldwide project

In 1947, Rockefeller's IBEC opened in Venezuela, introducing supermarkets and revolutionising local commerce. The model was then exported to Europe, starting with Italy. With Italian partners such as the Caprotti brothers, the first supermarket, future Esselunga, was founded in Milan in 1957.

Quick Take — Pesticides: their use contributes significantly to the biodiversity crisis.

pesticides are causing devastating negative effects on hundreds of species of microbes, fungi, plants, insects, fish, birds and mammals, which should not be affected. Globally, their use contributes significantly to the biodiversity crisis.

Scientists analysed more than 1,700 laboratory and field studies on the impacts of 471 different types of pesticides (insecticides, fungicides and herbicides) used in agriculture, commercial or domestic settings. Far-reaching negative effects were observed on more than 800 terrestrial and aquatic species, with impacts on growth rate, reproductive success and even behaviour, such as the ability to catch prey, find plants to feed on, move or attract partners. Pesticides can also alter the metabolism of organisms and damage cells.

On food and pesticides read here

Is there a solution for the food we import from countries that use pesticides banned in Europe?

The Mercosur free trade agreement could be an opportunity to try to align the rules between South America and the European Union. Trade unions, such as Coldiretti, should not dissipate their forces on meaningless projects such as the no to ‘cultured meat’ or the production of dried pasta, and focus on reciprocity of import standards

Quick Take — FAO: Food price index on the rise

Global food commodity prices rose in April, driven by rising prices of cereals, meat and dairy products that outpaced declines in sugar and vegetable oils, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said today.

The FAO food price index, which tracks monthly changes in a basket of internationally traded food products, averaged 128.3 points in April, up 1 per cent from the March estimate of 127.1 points.

Note below the inflationary peak of 2022