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

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 — US duties on Italian agri-foodstuffs: damage up to € 2 billion

According to estimates by the Centro studi di Unimpresa, in 2024 exports of food, wine and food products made in Italy to the US stood at 7.8 billion euros, 17% more than in 2023 and, in light of the duties, risks being damaged by almost 2 billion. It must be said that the calculation was made assuming tariffs at 25%, so in the end the damage could be less. According to Coldiretti’s estimates, the duties on the sector will result in a 1.6 billion price increase for American consumers, with a drop in sales that will damage Italian companies, as well as increase the phenomenon of Italian sounding

Quick Take — Wine with, without alcohol and winetours

On alcohol-free wine, the EU goes against the positions of Coldiretti (opposed to alcohol-free wine perhaps because its membership base does not like it? Or because progress is against it, as in the case of cultivated meat?).

On the phrase – see below – by Roberta Garibaldi ‘The drop in consumption is fought with winetours to producers’ homes’ we are very doubtful: those who do not consume do not go to the cellar.