Urgent interventions to bring Emilia-Romagna out of the emergency. These are the requests reiterated by the leaders of Coldiretti, Confagricoltura, Cia-Italian Farmers and Copagri during the meeting at Masaf with Minister Francesco Lollobrigida and the Commissioner for post-flood reconstruction, General Francesco Paolo Figliuolo.
"Speed and efficiency in the management of resources and in the distribution of aid are fundamental for the rebirth of agricultural enterprises so hard hit by the fury of the waters with damage to crops, structures and machinery", said the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini, underlining that "the important measures already launched by the Government and Europe which has allocated 60.5 million for Italy that will be able to triple with national contribution, They are a first step."
Maximum availability and collaboration, "in the hope of a rapid definition of measures for the recovery and reconstruction of damaged areas, with a view to an important bureaucratic simplification" was assured to Figliuolo by the general director of Confagricoltura Annamaria Barrile, who hoped for "the definition of a national strategy that, in the medium to long term, allows us to protect and prepare agriculture for the management of this now inevitable climate challenge". Among the proposals put forward by Confagricoltura, the need for a national co-financing of 200% on the CAP crisis reserve in order to compensate the affected companies. In addition, "adequate resources are indispensable - added Barrile - to compensate companies and support them in the reconstruction of fruit structures and plants in the field; dedicated credit lines with controlled cost of money.
Urgent interventions, in addition to a reduction in bureaucratic burdens, were also requested by the leaders of Cia-Italian Farmers. "It is necessary to intervene in a timely manner - explained the president of Cia, Cristiano Fini - with important resources and lean bureaucracy in a territory that is also suffering the devastating effects of the late frosts of April, even more devastating than those of 2020-2021, which have heavily reduced the production capacity of many farms in those areas". "A special law is needed - observes Fini - that follows the legislative intervention of the seismic events of 2012, providing compensation for damaged structures, drains and irrigation infrastructures".
Give the highest priority to the restoration of the banks, together with that of the structural damage recorded in the hills, before winter arrives and provide a contribution exemption to give breathing space to farms for missed harvests: these are the main requests made by Alleanza Cooperative Agroalimentari a Figliuolo. According to Davide Vernocchi, present at the meeting, "only in the fruit and vegetable sector companies will have to deal with a contraction of production equal to an average of 60% and with generalized qualitative damage, which will lead to a doubling of production costs along the supply chain for the current campaign". The meeting was also attended by Cristian Maretti who emphasized the need for guarantees to be given to the affected farms, in order to make them understand what they can expect in terms of aid, especially for those that are located in marginal areas and that will have to restore their funds.
"Helping these companies - said Maretti - is an investment for the future because the possible abandonment of those territories would mean increasing the probability of future hydrogeological instability and therefore of other extraordinary interventions". The need for urgent measures is also underlined by the president of Copagri Tommaso Battista. "The watchwords to keep in mind to restart the Primary of Emilia-Romagna, devastated by the dramatic flood that only in agriculture has caused over 1 billion euros of damage - he underlined - are basically two, or timeliness, so as to give oxygen and hope to the over twenty thousand farms affected, and debureaucratization, a fundamental condition for a rapid grounding of the huge resources allocated and for an immediate effectiveness of the measures identified".