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The Northern Italy Pomodoro IO challenges several points of the CAP 2023-2027
"Tomato growers' margins are among the lowest and most uncertain in the Italian agricultural sector."
The Pomodoro Nord IO chaired by Tiberio Rabboni questioned the European Commission on several points of the CAP in a letter addressed to Minister Patuanelli.
"In the document containing the comments on the Italian proposal for a national strategic CAP 2023-27 plan, the EU Commission on Agriculture states," according to the note signed by Mr. Rabboni (in Comment 149, concerning coupled aid) that "Italy should corroborate with statistical evidence the justification of the economic difficulty of the sectors concerned and provide information on how the interventions can contribute to improving the situation in the sector in order to overcome these difficulties. In accordance with Article 32 […], coupled income support interventions should help the sector to address the difficulties encountered by improving its competitiveness, sustainability or quality, and their link with specific objectives 1 and 2 should be established accordingly. In addition, the focus on lowering operating margins should be mitigated, especially for those sectors with relatively high margins (e.g. tomato processing)."
Tiberio Rabboni In this regard, the Pomodoro Nord IO would like to point out that, as far as processing tomatoes are concerned, the comments presented in Comment 149 are unfounded, particularly for the following reasons, all of which are supported by official data and statistics:
The margins of tomato producing farms are among the lowest and most uncertain of the Italian agricultural sector. This is confirmed in a medium-term analysis of average agricultural production costs collected and presented in the ISMEA report for the year 2021. This analysis shows that average total costs per hectare, despite territorial and size differences, are often higher than the average income per hectare of recent years (excluding CAP aid). It follows that without the EU contribution, profitability tends to fall to zero. For tomato growers, CAP payments linked to surface area have always been an essential component of the profit margin. The national convergence of the CAP and the abolition of greening support after 2023 will result in a loss of more than 60% of this income. The allegedly high margins mentioned in the Commission's Comment 149 relate to tomato processors and not to tomato growers, which are the only possible beneficiaries of coupled aid. Moreover, this qualification of the margin is not founded, even with regard to the industrial activity of processors. The Italian production of processing tomatoes is in competition on the international markets with similar productions from other EU countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece and France. In all these countries, tomato growers are guaranteed coupled support per hectare of an amount higher than that currently recognized and being proposed again to Italian growers for 2023-27. Finally, it should be noted that in northern Italy, there is no room for improvement in the extent to which the agricultural sector is organized, since 98% of processing tomato growers are already grouped in producers' organizations (POs) and these POs are affiliated with the Northern Italy Tomato Processing Interbranch Organization. "We therefore invite the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies and the State-Regions Conference to provide data and statistics to contradict, as requested, Comment 149 of the European Commission and to confirm the provision of coupled support to the tomato industry in Italy.""On this occasion," concludes Rabboni, "we would also like to reiterate the request for a new eco-scheme, or the revision of one of those planned and proposed, in order to allow growers of tomatoes or any other product that may be excluded (like grain) to access the measures in question and improve the environmental sustainability of the crop and the land used, for example through the incentive of 'post-harvest' cover crops."
Sources: freshplaza.it
