Piedmont: insurance alone is no longer enough for Confagricoltura

" It is a difficult year - explains Michele Ponso, president of the national federation of fruit products of Confagricoltura - which sees us fully committed to adopting integrated cultivation practices to minimize chemical treatments for the defense of orchards. Climate change in progress heavily impacts on the cultivation methods and the disasters that follow one another are dealing hard blows to our entrepreneurial capacity. For this we ask for help from the institutions, which must remember that the fruit sector in Piedmont involves over 5,800 farms and an area of 13,000 hectares ".

The frosts of the last spring, particularly in the Saluzzo area and, albeit to a lesser extent, in the other fruit areas of Piedmont have drastically reduced if not completely eliminated the production of apricots, plums, kiwis and pears. Michele Ponso, from Lagnasco (Cuneo), fruit grower who runs a company with 130 hectares of orchards in the provinces of Cuneo and Verona, where small fruits (blueberries, raspberries and kiwi berry), peaches, nectarines, plums, kiwis and apples are produced , he knows the problems well.

"The difficulties are many - emphasizes Ponso - starting from the lack of liquidity, which is essential to support the costs of managing the crops , which this year will not bear fruit, waiting for next year's harvest. We hope for the support of public bodies in the guarantees to be provided to the banking system to extend the deadlines for credit operations , in addition to the precise definition of the provisions, which are still lacking today, relating to the contribution relief for self-employed workers and for employees of damaged companies ".

To the climatic difficulties and those of Covid - explains Confagricoltura - are added the damage caused by the infestation of the Asian bug, a parasite that is difficult to contain.

Confagricoltura also reiterates the need for an overall review of Legislative Decree 102/2004, relating to the so-called National Solidarity Fund against atmospheric disasters : today aid is limited, does not cover all the damage and is paid very late. "We need more agile tools - underlines Enrico Allasia, president of Confagricoltura Piemonte - integrating the endowment of the Fund which shows all its limits in offering adequate compensation with respect to the losses of the primary sector".

Confagricoltura also asks the Region and the local parliamentarians to commit to the restructuring of the insurance system, which with the ongoing climate change pushes companies to neglect this branch of risk due to the frequency of claims . "We must guarantee a better effectiveness of the passive defense, constituted by the insurance system, and at the same time experiment with new possibilities of intervention in active defense - concludes Allasia - to limit the damages that are becoming more and more important".