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

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

Quick Take — Senatorial commission on Perrier: the Presidency of the Republic knew, at least since 2022, that Nestlé had been cheating for years

was aware that this created a distortion of competition with other mineral water producers and was aware of bacteriological and even virological contamination on some wells.

Among the many things Nestlé did to conceal the fraud: removing “the list of pesticides (herbicides, fungicides) that have been banned for some of them for 20 years, such as atrazine. No more PFAS, chlorates and other perchlorates. Above all, the table quoting the frequency of detection of E.Coli bacteria and intestinal enterococci for the period 2020-2023 is out.

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