Coldiretti's alarm: «Sardinian wheat at risk of extinction»
Skyrocketing production costs and low remuneration, for producers a loss of tens of millions of euros
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Sardinian wheat at risk of extinction with producers who are already in crisis .
This is the alarm raised by Coldiretti Sardinia , according to which the 2023 campaign already presents a critical situation , with skyrocketing production costs and payments to farmers , so far kept hidden, which remain well below production costs .
THE DATA – According to estimates by Coldiretti, the production costs in detail are between 1,100 and 1,200 euros per hectare , also considering fertilizers and diesel at all-time highs. To all this is added a remuneration that remains very low , around 30 euros per quintal (if the quality of the wheat remains high). With a yield of 30 quintals per hectare (on average), therefore, and in the face of costs of 1,200 euros, the revenue reaches 900 euros , a figure that leads Sardinian cereal growers to lose about 300 euros per quintal , which translated regional means lower revenues by tens of millions of euros.
THE NUMBERS - In this panorama, according to a Coldiretti Sardinia elaboration on Istat data, in 2022 the areas cultivated in Sardinia on durum wheat reached 29,200 hectares with a production of 693 thousand quintals . On a national basis, the South and the Islands (therefore including Sardinia) lead with 75% of the share of cultivated areas and 65% of national production (Elaboration on Ismea data). Furthermore, in the 2021-22 campaign, the average price of durum wheat grain , on a national basis, reached 473 euros per ton, up by 73.5% compared to 2020-21 .
INCREASING IMPORTS – The island's production continues to deal with increasingly high imports . Also on the basis of a Coldiretti Sardinia survey in 2023 , 500 thousand tons of grains including wheat, corn and barley landed in Sardinian ports (the greatest transit through the port of Oristano, 470 thousand tons) and a total of 190 thousand tons of feed , including soybeans and legumes. The major provenance of vessels carrying this type of product came mostly from France, followed by Canada and Ukraine.
«We are facing a real wheat emergency in Sardinia , which could cost the very survival of the island's companies - say the president and director of Coldiretti Cagliari, Giorgio Demurtas and Luca Saba -. Such high production costs in the face of clearly lower revenues are bringing the entire sector to its knees . Without an immediate turnaround there is a concrete risk of seeing the cereal sector totally wiped out in a very few years, if it is true that the speculation in progress on the market is increasingly influencing it. Therefore, the public sector also needs to support the sector».
GOOD PRACTICES – Among the possible support actions there is that of the supply chains and Sardinia can count on the "Solo Sardo" project . «This experience demonstrates that there is the possibility of supporting our primary producers - underlines Marco Locci , president of the Isola Sarda Cooperative - thanks to this supply chain, the price for farmers is integrated with agreements that guarantee at least that the cost does not go below of production in case of difficult years». "But even these good practices - the conclusion - need support to continue to create benefits".
(Unioneonline/vl)
