Sardinian farms in crisis due to expensive energy: "500 businesses at risk of closing down"
Piana's appeal: "The Region should establish a task force of technicians in Argea"
The Agricultural Studies Center asks for an urgent commitment from the institutions for the relaunch of agriculture and livestock farming in Sardinia, to prevent over 500 companies from closing down on the island as early as 2022.
The crisis is due to numerous critical issues, ranging from the increase in the prices of feed, fertilizers, agricultural diesel and energy, to the climatic situations of drought (since early November it does not rain in Sardinia), up to the regional bureaucracy.
According to the CSA, the situation is even more dramatic on the island, also due to the costs of transporting products.
Tore Piana, president of the Center, proposes to urgently set up a task force made up of 100 technical instructors, to be included for at least one year in Argea, the regional agency that disburses the contributions envisaged for the agricultural sector.
"To date, uneducated and / or unpaid practices would be too many (a few thousand) in the 2016 calls on the 2014/2021 Sardinia PSR. In weeks, new calls will also be issued to apply to investment measures, 4.1 and 4.2 and those on young people setting up for the first time, 6.1. From a brief survey by the CSA, many territorial offices of Argea have a very small and insufficient number, to instruct the files presented ", said Piana.
“It would be enough for Argea to ask the Laore Agency for the secondment of 70/100 technicians, newly hired, to be distributed in the various local offices. This would immediately give a fair amount of liquidity to farms that are currently in difficulty and that have been waiting for years to receive the contributions due. The same situation, if not worse, is found in the staff of the regional agriculture department, reduced to the bone and almost unable to fully operate due to lack of staff. Think of the phytopathological service, where two of the 54 planned technicians are on duty ”, he added.
The Agricultural Studies Center therefore asks the Regional Council for the urgent approval of a “save farms” rule, to be agreed with the national government, which grants a contribution for cutting the higher costs of raw materials, justified by the insularity.
(Unioneonline / F)
