IN 2010, 50,000 AGRICULTURAL BUSINESSES RISK CLOSING DOWN, SAYS THE CIA- ITALIAN FARMERS CONFEDERATION

“In 2009 thousands of farms were forced to close down. Another 50.000 businesses are likely to cease activity in 2010: a very grave situation, stresses the CIA (Italian Farmers Confederation), and costs, prices and incomes “are a real debacle”. Therefore, at their Assembly Nr. 5, which will be held in Rome from 24 to 26 February, the Federal Government will launch a project to boost development and competitiveness, formulating proposals to help get the industry out of the deep crisis. Much attention will be focused on the growing problem of organized crime, “which is stretching its tentacles even to the countryside”.

According to CIA, agriculture is going through one of the longest and most difficult crises in its recent history: the price collapse added to the more general effects (access to credit, falling demand, unemployment, higher production costs); the fall in income (-25.3%), while the phenomenon of crime, which is damaging the farmers, is increasingly spreading in many regions, including crimes stretching from theft to vandalism, from loan sharking to protection rackets, from illegal dumping to scams against the European Union.
All these difficulties are becoming increasingly greater, according to the confederation, due to “the lack of actions taken by Governmental Institutions to alleviate this dramatic moment. The economic crisis,” emphasizes CIA, “has cracked the capacity of adaptation of farms that drew strength from a more flexible use of resources, starting from work and a network of family solidarity that helped alleviate problems of credit and ensured sufficient capacity to buy. A more attentive and targeted policy is essential to the industry. We need targeted and concrete measures to cut productive, benefit and bureaucratic costs and revitalize the fields where prices continue on a vertical fall”.

Hence the efforts of CIA which, as stated in the conference document, “is committed to building a stronger, modern agriculture and is working to promote the proactive involvement of farmers, women entrepreneurs and young people, who represent the future and the perspective of the industry. On the other hand, today”, concludes the CIA, “there are signs of stabilizing the world economy, but it will be long and difficult road to recovery.
The social costs, especially in terms of employment, will be higher and this will weigh on agricultural households and their unique social structure. It will take time to recover income, employment and production to the levels before the crisis and to reduce the growth differential of Italy compared to other countries in the euro area as well as between North and South of Italy”.