The government studies a framework law for floriculture in Italia

A framework law for the horticultural sector. This is the request that has come from the Italian Horticulturists Association of the Cia to the Government for this final part of the legislature. A bill for a framework measure for the sector had already been presented in the last legislature. At the beginning of the new one it had been transformed into a delegated law to the Government to define a framework discipline for the sector.

'Without a clear definition,' explained the past president of the Italian Floriculturists Association, Aldo Alberto, 'we struggle to speak with one voice. Without legal recognition then, we have no interlocutors in the institutions. As of today, in fact, we don't know which directorate of Masaf we have to interface with, not to mention that without a framework and recognition we are precluded from many forms of funding for the agricultural sector'.

Yet the floriculture sector in Italia is not a marginal sector: it has a turnover of 3.25 billion euro, 70% of which is realised on foreign markets, with over 20 thousand companies and more than 100 thousand employees.

"It is a sector that is facing major challenges," added the newpresident of the Cia floriculturists' association, Emanuela Milone. "We are an energy-intensive sector, greenhouses are heated with diesel in winter and irrigated with diesel pumps in summer. We would have the chance of agri-voltaics and then panels that could be mounted on the greenhouses themselves. But when all is said and done, these investments are proving to be much more complex than expected in terms of bureaucratic management. And we face the phytosanitary challenge with increasing threats due to climate change on the one hand, and on the other hand with the outlawing of some important molecules for phytosanitary pest control without any alternatives having been found. For all these reasons we need a framework law for the sector that can be the basis for a new beginning and a new development. Without a clear legal identity we cannot create a system, nor can we access resources in a targeted manner to innovate and compete'.

But the pressing questions posed by the Italian floriculturists of the Cia tried to be answered by the Undersecretary for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Patrizio La Pietra, who is in charge of the sector.