Fini (confirmed as head of Cia): water policy and tax relief to relaunch inland areas
President Fini: Launching a strategy for the protection of water resources without an emergency. Advantage taxation to stimulate investments in rural areas
by Giorgio dell'Orefice
Key points
Tensions in the Middle East are creating great difficulties for Italian farmers with the escalation of diesel and fertiliser prices. Extraordinary measures such as during Covid are needed to react. Starting with a European plan on liquidity, to ensure continuity of production but without forgetting the structural problems of the sector, which do not depend on wars.
In Rome, the assembly of Cia-Agricoltori Italiani
It is a practical reasoning that of Cristiano Fini, president of Cia-Agricoltori Italiani, the Confederation that on 7 May celebrates its national elective assembly in Rome that confirms him for a second term.
Tackling water resources outside emergencies
"The key issue," explains Fini, "is climate change, which is structurally reducing production yields and, with them, farmers' incomes. In order to cope with it, we must improve the management of water resources, a fundamental raw material for production.
Yet the past few months have been marked by an abundance of rainfall. "But that abundance," Fini adds, "quickly turns into scarcity if no action is taken. It may seem paradoxical, but the issue of water resources must be addressed when they are not a problem. Whereas instead they only become central when there is a shortage of them. But in this way we end up in a logic of emergency, useful to plug the damage, but very often ineffective in solving the problems. This is why, as an organisation, we are mapping criticalities and good practices, identifying works that can already be implemented throughout the country'.
Agriculture 'uses' water and does not 'consume' water
When talking about water and agriculture, it is often said that agriculture 'consumes' water. "We do not consume water," Fini emphasises, "but we do use water. Those resources come back into circulation partly through groundwater and secondly because they end up in the food we produce. Using is very different from consuming'.
