di Thomas Loiodice
President Unapol
The cry of alarm raised by the article by olive news on the reduction of olive-growing areas in Italy will be destined to be perennially current if there is not a new cultural system approach. It is necessary restore dignity to the work of olive growers, returning them the right income for the work done, under the bad weather of any kind, not only to bring the olive product to harvest, but also to protect and safeguard the territory. The latter is one of the unspoken roles that the entire community should recognize to olive growers and which should be taken on especially for the "Italian country" system. Surely we need a true national olive oil plan that also aims at the regeneration of the olive tree heritage in a current key, but we cannot make the industrial-type system set up by other nations (super-intensive) an ideal model, which also discount a very low social cost of labour. A fair compromise is needed. For how our nation is configured and for the micro-size of our olive farms, it is necessary to encourage new unifying management tools that lead to a rationalization of costs and the use of raw materials and energy. It is essential to encourage and support olive growing in inland areas, making it a true testimonial of the "beautiful country". The real challenge continues to be that of enhancement of Italian olive biodiversity which speaks of quality extra virgin olive oils with very high nutraceutical values so as to be able to identify them as "natural drugs" (the use of the plural is not casual). Another strong point to communicate is the concept of sustainability inherent in the production of the evo. To do this, however, it is necessary that all the players in the supply chain are involved, and when I talk about the supply chain I am also talking about large-scale distribution which must restore dignity to the extra virgin product by stopping it from continuing to consider it a commodity. If we manage to do this, we will probably register greater attention from the new generations to this sector with a thousand-year history and to reverse the trend of decreasing olive groves.
