Italian farmers have drafted a list of demands which they will submit to Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida on Feb. 10. The list makes it clear that farmers are demanding nothing less than a paradigm change, and that their main enemy is the European Commission. Points 1, 2, 4, 7, 9 and, indirectly, 10, concern EU competencies. The other points concern competencies of the Italian governments
1. Reprogramming the Green Deal: They demand a “complete overhaul of European agricultural policy, which is environmentally extremist and to the detriment of agricultural production and consumers.”
2. Imports and Freedom of Enterprise: Farmers call for “banning the import of agricultural products from countries where production and health regulations are not the same ones as ours,” and to “guarantee freedom of enterprise, including by passing laws to combat economic dumping (of) agricultural and food products.”
3. Establishment of a Technical Table: They call for the establishment of “a technical table of only real farmers who would be involved whenever regulations that directly or indirectly affect the agriculture and food sector are modified or updated.”
4. Abolition of Constraint for Not Farming Land: The “immediate abolition of constraints and incentives for not cultivating land” and also the elimination of “the obligation not to cultivate 4% of the land and any form of subsidy designed to discourage cultivation”
5. De-taxing Agriculture: “Maintaining an appropriate tax regime for the agricultural world, given the critical economic situation caused by the exponential increase in production costs and the downturn in markets for agricultural products.”
