Quick Take — European rice at risk: 60% of consumption from imports also because the European safeguard clause has expired

These days in Brussels a decision on the preferential duty system on arrivals from South East Asia. Rice industries: the already processed product costs the same as the raw product in the EU

Facilitated (and cheap) imports, global surpluses, together with the devaluation of the dollar, reduced freight rates and the impact of the climate crisis on producers are putting a strain on the resilience of the Italian rice supply chain.

The latest alarm for a concomitance of factors ‘that are not manageable by the supply chain’ comes from Airi, the Association of Rice Industries, which for some years now, with the expiry of the European safeguard clause that Italy had painstakingly managed to activate in Brussels, has been facing the resumption of duty-free imports from large producers, which have come to cover over 60% of total European purchases.

Rice that is largely ready-packed and packaged, sold at prices that are unsustainable for continental producers: today, via Rotterdam, milled white rice arrives at 400 euro per tonne; competing European varieties cost at least twice as much, 800-1,000 euro. In Italy, 400 euros buys a tonne of paddy rice, an agricultural raw material that then has to be transported, stored, processed and packaged… Il Sole 24 ore

On the safeguard clauses read here.

Lusetti (Confcommercio): ‘Let’s not harass farmers. Price rises cause energy and climate’ (and raw materials)

The fact of not dealing directly with farmers CANNOT be a boast because it means that those who buy, in the large-scale retail trade, are not doing it well because they accept intermediaries and opacity in the purchase prices and margins of all the actors in the chain. Most probably, by negotiating directly with farmers, they could obtain better prices that would benefit their customers

Our relationship with FOOD over the last 100 YEARS has changed a lot: how?

How has our relationship with food changed over the last hundred years? In the first episode of the docuseries “What We Eat”, produced together with @foodunfolded with the support of EIT Food and co-funded by the European Union, we retrace the evolution of our relationship with what we eat, which has been turned upside down in just one century

Quick Take — The President of the Council has the same positions as Trump but shows more diplomacy: she admits climate change but does nothing concrete

rather demonise the ecological transition. Indeed, Trump has just suspended the operating permits for all major offshore projects under construction in the USwith immediate effecton 22 December (Le Monde). The announcement concerns in particular five projects located on the east coast that represent a total investment of $25 billion (around €21 billion). These fields, which had received federal credits under Joe Biden’s tenure, were supposed to provide electricity to more than 2.5 million households and businesses and create nearly 10,000 jobs (Le Monde).

The political risk is great as the cost of electricity in the US has risen by 5% this year, the power grid is obsolete, and the ‘inflation theme’ is hot (Le Monde). .

While in our country, industrial production is retreating, also under the blows of an Italian energy cost that is among the highest in Europe.

Below: the ecological transition does not stop (Lifegate December 2025), despite Trump and Meloni.

Quick Take — The effect of climate change on coffee: more and more complicated to grow Arabica. And quality suffers

Brazilian producers are choosing more drought-resistant species such as Robusta. But the taste is changing, getting worse: more bitter and with more caffeine. Behind a bean an entire supply chain is changing face: the Arabica variety, Brazilian farmers explain, requires more stable climatic conditions, average altitudes and moderate temperatures than the current climatic extremes. Then there is the problem of inflation and the cost of coffee at the bar: this year Arabica is priced 50 per cent higher than a year ago.One way to tackle the climate challenge is to increase production of the Robusta variety, which has shown itself to be more resilient than Arabica: it tolerates heat and water stress better, and can also be grown at lower altitudes. These characteristics make it safer to the point that in Brazil it has grown at an average annual rate of about 4.8 % compared to 2-2.5 % for Arabica. Green&Blue wonders whether consumers will be able to adapt. In Italy certainly, because very often the coffee that is drunk in public places is bad.

Quick Take — Chiquita, from Sicily the first Italian production

Chiquita’s iconic bananas will be grown, for the first time, in Italy. With the bananas an Italian product, the brand starts production in the heart of Sicily together with the local agricultural cooperative Alba Bio

The banana is the last of the tropical products whose production has landed in southern Italy as a result of climate change.

“There is no shortage of unknowns. The banana is a demanding plant: it requires large amounts of water and stable environmental conditions. In an island that already faces water and climate challenges, maintaining environmental sustainability will be crucial’…

Bananas are already cultivated in Italy in Apulia.

Compiled on 30 September updated on 6 October 2025