EU condemnation in the 'Terra dei fuochi' reignites farmers' fears

In the 1980s, in the province of Naples, the Giugliano countryside was home to Italy's largest fruit and vegetable production and Acerra strawberries were world famous. Then, in 1996, the parliamentary commission of enquiry ascertained for the first time the existence of illegal dumps in what would later be called the 'Terra dei fuochi'. And in the countryside stretching from the sea of Naples to the foothills of Caserta, nothing was ever the same again. There were years when no one wanted to buy agricultural products from a land polluted by toxic waste. 'From being the first in Italy, we became the last,' says Francesco Pirozzi, who has a farm in Giugliano and chairs the local Coldiretti office in the town. 'We were selling below cost. The Caserta peaches are renowned, in those years they were selling for 35-40 cents per kilo, then suddenly they dropped below 20 cents. We farmers even went on strike in Pozzuoli, to say enough was enough'.

Darkest moment? Domenico Sabatino thinks about it. He too produces fruit in Calvizzano, in the middle of the Terra dei fuochi, and is now provincial vice-president of Coldiretti in Naples. 'The worst moment was between 2006 and 2009,' he says, 'when on supermarket counters throughout Italy, to reassure consumers, signs were hung up saying 'we do not sell products from Campania''.

For a few years now, things have been going better for farmers in the Terra dei Fuochi. "Certainly, production has decreased compared to thirty years ago,' Sabatino admits, 'but the prices of our products are back in line with the market average. The stigma thus seemed a faded memory. Until a few days ago, when fear returned along with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, which after years of silence turned the spotlight back on the affairs of this strip of land.

After a six-year trial, the Strasbourg court condemned Italy on 30 January for failing to sufficiently protect the health of the 3 million inhabitants of the 90 municipalities in the Terra dei Fuochi from environmental pollution. 'As farmers we are worried,' Sabatino says, 'all it takes is one wrong post on social media, and the boycott against Campania's agricultural products could start again.

Don't reopen that drain, in short. But are the fruits and vegetables of the Tierra dei Fuochi safe, or not? According to its farmers, in the vast majority of cases it always has been. The report of the interministerial commission that, at the request of the 2013 Terra dei fuochi decree, monitored farmland, established that only 3% of the areas analysed were polluted. However, the map dates back to 2016, almost ten years ago. "In 2016, a first massive campaign was carried out over the entire regional territory," explains Professor Antonio Limone, director general of the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Southern Italy, at the time a member of the interministerial commission that drew up the map. "Subsequently," assures the professor, "dynamic monitoring campaigns were carried out, which are still ongoing, with particular reference to groundwater. Covid slowed down the investigations, he admits, but the work continues today. 'We farmers were the first to want the controls,' says Sabatino, 'at times we even did them ourselves. When the spotlight turned on the Terra dei fuochi we were already exporting to Russia, Japan and the United Arab Emirates, and all these countries first wanted to see Global Gap certification, the standard for environmental sustainability recognised by most large-scale distribution chains'. As for the fires and toxic waste spills on the land, Sabatino says that there haven't been any for years: 'We have the army here,' he assures.