A pact between the government and agri-food cooperation to safeguard the excellence of Made in Italy of which cooperatives represent 1/4 of the value.
It was launched by the president of Confcooperative at the meeting with the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida.
In fact, in Italy, 60% of wine production, 70% of dairy products, over 40% of fruit and vegetables and 60% of poultry and rabbits are made by cooperatives.
According to Gardini, "it is unthinkable to compete in the same market with different rules", citing the six 'woodworms' that erode the competitiveness of a sector that affects GDP by 15%.
Starting from dumping and undeclared work, to the inflationary spiral of energy and raw material costs.
Then there is the mismatch of the lack of professional figures and the Farm to Fork and the Community regulations on sustainability, which ask companies to turn around too quickly without accompanying measures;
and while the EU market is regulated, agricultural products are imported from countries where the DDT is still used.
Then there is the nutriscore which trivializes and penalizes the Mediterranean diet and finally the Italian sounding which weighs in at over 100 billion euros, i.e. double the exports.
Speaking of manpower, according to Gardini "the restoration of vouchers is a measure adopted by the government that goes in the right direction; our cooperatives employ 530,000 people and could hire another 25,000, but many adequate professional figures are missing. Only in the agriculture - he concluded - our cooperatives, which employ 74,000 people, lack over 2,500 simple and skilled workers".