Increase the production of Italian olive oil, optimize the management of water resources to cope with drought, enhance the environmental profile of olive groves at risk of abandonment, reduce production costs, relaunch nursery farming, intervene effectively on Xylella, create a true inter-profession, developing relationships in the international representative body of olive growing (the Coi).
Are the central points the new National Olive Plan will be examined and anticipated by undersecretary Patrizio La Pietra in Bitonto in the meeting organized by Italy Olive growing,Legacoop Agribusiness, Co. and Ministry of Agriculture and Food and Forestry Sovereignty.
Political choices
Collecting the stimuli of the numerous speakers, including the president of Italia Olivicola and Cia Puglia, Gennaro Sicolo, the undersecretary illustrated the path undertaken and the next steps, starting from a premise: “The choices are made by the government, because politics must assume its responsibilities, certainly listening to everyone, but with the commitment to decide for the common good”.
And yes, because by not deciding, according to the undersecretary's intervention, they paid the consequences. In listing that after the approval of the various sector plans in the agricultural world, everything remained unchanged for decades – the latest olive plan, which is among the most recent, is dated 2016 – La Pietra recognized that a basic strategy is missing, with a policy that has limited itself to governing the present, trying to distribute resources, to mitigate emergencies, without focusing on objectives and structural reforms.
With regards to the olive-growing technical support table, La Pietra communicated that in recent days the request was made to all the associations to formalize the names of the respective members who will represent them by next week.
The objectives of the olive growing plan
The first point of the new plan that the government will propose in the discussion with the olive oil world will be that ofincrease in production capacityto. And this means an increase in the olive grove surface area, where Puglia will obviously be a central region, also for recover the hectares of olive groves destroyed by Xylella. Regarding this phytopathy, the Ministry representative recalled that they exist at least another 120 million available from the Xylella plan which still have to be spent - i.e. reach directly to the companies involved - due to delays caused by bureaucratic mechanisms that must be overcome. For Xylella itself, La Pietra recalled that one has already been established Control commission and so that goes reviewed from an operational perspective together with the Puglia Region to have new inputs and to understand not only whether the administrative procedures set up in this way are correct, but also whetherand the objectives set are effectively achievable.
The increase in production capacity, especially where super-intensive plants are also taken into consideration, discounts the serious problem linked to drought which hit the south especially hard. A theme that La Pietra does not miss, remembering however that the infrastructure system for water management is 20 years behind in our country. “We have started a process that allows us to understand what urgent interventions need to be carried out - he added - and we must start from them. I'm talking about dams, drainage of basins to collect more rainwater, the use of waste water which can be used, in compliance with legal parameters, for agriculture in general and for olive groves through a network that must be built".
New olive groves, without forgetting those already present and which, especially in central-southern Italy, are risk of abandonmentor because they are located in marginal, steep, inaccessible terrain. “The abandonment of olive groves is a serious problem – highlighted the undersecretary – which cannot be handled as a production-only issue. Rather, there is an environmental utility that must be privileged and we must support, and therefore involve the Ministry of the Environment in this context, because the maintenance and restoration of these abandoned olive groves have a function of protecting the territory. There are two parallel lines, those of the marketing of the oil and the environmental protection of these olive groves that we must keep together".
Another topic touched upon is that of cost reduction, which goes hand in hand with that of the valorization of by-products. “A topic to think about together – commented the undersecretary – because production costs have a strong impact on the accounts of the olive oil company. Just as the nursery sector must be central, especially if, as mentioned, the issue linked to the increase in production becomes central".
Finally,appeal to the olive growing world to show solidarity and to have as objective is the good of companies and not just the increase in the number of members of your association.
“I can't force anyone to be together – added the undersecretary – but this is a job to be built together and I want to facilitate this unity because a functioning inter-profession, on the Spanish model, is an objective to work on, as well as on supply chain agreements. For this reason I confirm the maximum openness to the collaboration of all associations on the line that will be drawn by the government. A government that asks for everyone's contribution but which will then decide autonomously, as is right in a country where politics returns to fully play its role."
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