May 2023. Between the night of the third, Wednesday, and the fourth, Thursday, the Emilia-Romagna geographical areas of Faenza and Ravenna are hit by a series of flood events extraordinary in intensity and violence. Heavy and persistent rains give rise to flooding and overflows as well as landslides, all events which are then repeated on the 16th and 17th of the same month with even greater violence. In total, the two floods affected more than one hundred municipalities, caused around nine billion in damages and had a heavy impact on all local production activities. In particular on agricultural and zootechnical ones, affected not only in the structures but also in terms of cultivation and storage. In fact, an important emergency was triggered which the Government decided to have managed by an extraordinary commissioner identified in the person of General Francesco Polo Figliuolo, undertaking at the same time to find the funds necessary to cover “one hundred percent of the damages suffered” and therefore to compensate both the structures and the lost production. A specific body was then delegated to compensate the former, the Agricat national mutual fund, established with Law 234 of 30 December 2021, foreseen by the National Strategic Plan of the CAP 2023-2027 and headed by Ismea, Institute of Services for the Agricultural Market Food.
On paper it therefore seemed that for once the State’s response to the emergency was ready and timely, but in practice this was not the case. Either because it seems that Agricat is not adequately structured in terms of employees to manage such a complex issue, or because it delegates the supplements to the income lost by producers to the Ordinances of Commissioner Figliuolo or to other instruments, or due to lack of funds, the fact is that the majority of claims made have not yet been processed. Many have been rejected, often without giving explanations to the senders, and in some cases it has reached the point of farce by approving compensation of a few thousand euros in the face of requests for tens of thousands. With the record in this sense held by a reimbursement of around “14 euros” against a request of 30 thousand.
In fact, yet another demonstration of management inability put forward by a government body, the Ministry of Agricultural Policies, which in recent years has almost always seen at its top people completely uninformed and unprepared on the issues they should have managed. A custom to which unfortunately the current minister Francesco Lollobrigida is no exception, very good at speaking when prompted by those in charge, i.e. Coldiretti, but much less inclined to act, as is well demonstrated by the failure to reimburse farmers and breeders in Emilia-Romagna. Romagna rather than the delay in trying to stem the spread of swine fever. The doubt that in the end the farmers mentioned above will end up having to fend for themselves is more than legitimate.
Titolo: Bad weather, lots of words but little money
Author: Furio Oldani
Translation with Google
