The renewed board of directors of the Consortium for the Protection of Tuscan PGI oil. The olive-growing entrepreneur from Santa Luce (Pisa) remains firmly at the top of the most important IG olive-growing consortium in Italy (8 thousand members) called to continue its path of consolidating the Tuscan denomination in the olive growing panorama.
Confirmed for the next three years, together with Filippi, the outgoing vice presidents that are Giampiero Cresti and Paolo Di Gaetano while the board of directors to which they belong was renewed for a quarter of its members Viviana Benvenuti, Laura Maria Berti, Francesca Ferrari, Giulio Fontana, Anna Maria Gabbricci, Filippo Legnaioli, Tulio Marcelli, Fabio Marini, Matteo Mugelli, Chiara Olivi, Antonio Pasquini, Giovanni Quaratesi, Giosef Sabatini, Riccardo Sardelli and Unfer Amos. The board of auditors, which includes Flavio Perini (President), Marco Anchinico and Claudio Lombardi, was also elected. The meeting of the board of directors was hosted in the conference room of the Montalbano cooperative in Vinci.
The challenge of abandoning olive groves
Not only the consolidation of the role of driver of national quality olive growing, the Consorzio del Toscano PGI is called upon to address the delicate criticality of the abandonment of olive trees which, according to one estimate, concerns 30% of the entire olive growing heritage estimated at 15 million plants. We're talking about a approximately 4 million olive trees which translate into a loss of the production potential of the entire regional sector. “I am happy with the reconfirmation and I thank all the directors who have placed their trust in me for the next three years. – commented President Filippi at the end of the board of directors – Our GI is growing, it is an objective fact, and it is associated with quality Tuscan oil.
The demand for Toscano PGI is so high that we are unable to satisfy it because our production is continuously decreasing due to the phenomenon of abandonment on the one hand and the effects of climate change on the other which increasingly determine, and with an incidence greater, the result of the years. The theme, for the present and for the future, is to recover the thousands of plants that are not managed by the tenants and owners and to enable agricultural companies to be able to collect rainwater, through small spaces or reservoirs, and then redistribute it at the moment of necessity through irrigation systems. It is clear to everyone that today, without the availability of water, it will be increasingly difficult to have sustainable production for companies. Our sector, whose value goes far beyond the purely economic one, will depend on the ability of the institutions to help us and support this path. Olive growers are custodians of the environment and artists of the landscape: intangible values that are at the foundations of the global imagination of our region and our country".
Correct agronomic management
According to the president of the Consortium for the Protection of Tuscan PGI oil “the climate is causing instability and inconsistency in product availability which penalizes our oil in international markets to the advantage of other national ones. – he explains again – It is clear that having constant production is rewarding. The other fundamental aspect, together with the availability of water, is that of correct and professional agronomic management of the plants to mitigate the alternation of the years. There are opportunities in the markets that we are unable to seize today. Alongside the recovery of productivity, we must continue to keep the control bar high to defend a brand that is very strong in the world. The Toscano PGI is the first olive denomination in terms of value and exports but this also makes it the most copied and evoked denomination".
Expand foreign markets
The renewal of the bodies of the Protection Consortium was also an opportunity to take stock of the mandate that has just ended, culminating in the trademark certification process registration in the United States which strengthens its protection in a strategic market. Promotion abroad, especially after the Covid period which had shuffled the cards, was one of the assets of the Consortium which, alongside the protection of the historic foreign markets, above all the American one, the main importer of Toscano PGI, went to look for new outlets in emerging countries for example in Hungary at the latest edition of the Shira in Budapest. The work is tireless "on the territory" with participation in numerous events and events, alongside other regional consortia such as Finocchiona IGP, Prosciutto DOP and Pecorino Toscano DOP, promotion on television broadcasters and digital channels and valorisation of the figure of olive growers considering that almost an enterprise every second member is female.
