Thousands of Italian farmers have been protesting against food imports from northern and central Europe. They call these products “Fake in Italy” because the EU wants to water down the geographical indications of food origin.
Around 10,000 farmers from all over Italy protested against this at the Brenner Pass on Monday (April 8th) The protests at the Italian-Austrian border crossing continued on Tuesday. In a spectacular action, the farmers, in collaboration with the Italian police, stopped trucks and “checked” their load. They also found a shipment of avocados from South Africa, some cheeses that already had an Italian name and another eight tons of pork and lard from Germany. There were also 100 kilos of eggs from Poland, flowers from Holland and bread and confectionery from Austria on the way to Catania. Every year, incredible amounts of pork meat are exported from Denmark to Italy; in 2021 there were 104,000 tons of meat, mostly pork legs.