ITALIAN ENOGASTRONOMIC PATRIMONY WORTH 20 BILLION EUROS, AND HAS CONTRIBUTED TO RELAUNCHING TOURISM IN 2006

The “Made in Italy” enogastronomic patrimony contributed in a decisive way to the renewal of Italian tourism in 2006, with an array of food products that earned over 20 billion euros, as well as top global recognition for wines, denomination of origin products, and organic and specialty traditions.
This is the data recently confirmed by Coldiretti President, Paolo Bedoni, during the round table discussion “Towards an economic compatibility”, organized by FAI with the goal of highlighting the fact that Italy is the only place in the world that offers food tourists 155 products of protected origin (DOP/IGP), 357 wines with the DOC/DOCG seals, 4255 traditional products assessed by regions that make up the “cities of wine” (546 municipalities), oil (284), organic (60), and bread (42), or along the 135 “wine roads”. Bedoni also pointed out that the “Made in Italy” image itself is defined by the country sweets from the Marche region, the olive and grape orchards in Umbria, the Cartesian balance of the Chianti hills between Siena and Florence, the pasturelands of the high plains of Asiago and the huts of Belluno, the terraced lands of Cinque Terre in Liguria, the steep lemon orchards of the Sorrento peninsula, and the geometric order of the apple orchards in the Val di Non in Alto Adige.
Realities that cannot be envied by the historical monuments of the art cities, and which must be protected by giving them sustainability for the presence of man and agricultural enterprises throughout the territories, providing adequate work and service opportunities that guarantee quality of life. Still according to Bedoni, everything that has inspired us comes out of the knowledge that agriculture, as we conceive it, makes it possible to construct a system of food and environmental enterprises (enterprises that we call “multifunctional”), that can develop and profit while still in harmony with the environment and the demands of consumers. And in this logic, we are expecting more willingness for innovation from other economic sectors. From industry, in particular, which is marching very slowly in this direction.
There are two key themes: giving more value to the territorial origin of the product and the politic of a clean, renewable energy source. And the ideas for collaboration are not lacking like, for example, the goal of substituting traditional plastic shopping bags with biodegradable materials of national agricultural origin beginning by 2010, as is already in effect in France. Bedoni claims that, to substitute the 300,000 tons of plastic used for traditional shopping bags, it would take only 200,000 hectares because just half a kilo of corn and one kilo of sunflower oil are sufficient enough to produce 100 non polluting bio-shopper bags.