Farmers in the fruit and vegetable, cereal and greenhouse sectors are on a war footing. "We feel betrayed by the state and by the regional bureaucracy", affirm from Coldiretti Cagliari , who announces a class action.
“ We expect funds of around 50 million euros for the 2017 drought and other natural disasters that have occurred over the years, but we are snubbed and they consider us second-class farmers , children of a lesser God. The institutions have turned their backs on us ”, says Giorgio Demurtas , president of Coldiretti Cagliari.
"Not even the new CAP recognizes a reference ecosystem on our production and in the meantime - continues Coldiretti - between money allocated and to be allocated and questions carried out we pay heavily for the continuous increases in raw materials, energy, fuel and water".
“Fruit and vegetables, cereals and greenhouses are sectors that in the last twenty years have been abandoned to their fate by the political world - explains Demurtas -, and given that we are deaf to the language of dossiers with problems and proposals, we will adapt to that of protest. The shame of the 2017 drought, which allocated 40 million to compensate farmers in these sectors - continues the president of the Cagliari Federation - is embarrassing and there are no more adjectives to define it. After five years - he continues - there are no justifications for anyone and we cannot even hide behind the bureaucracy which is often also a convenient lightning rod but is still created and can be dismantled by people ”.
The protest comes from the countryside, with operators now at the end of their strengths , both economically and mentally: "The heavy calamity of 2017 is the mirror of how all politics considers these second-tier sectors and risks triggering wars among the poor - say the presidents section of the Federation of Coldiretti Cagliari -. In five years we have not yet been liquidated, at least not all of them. And this involves both the center-left council which has adopted two weights and two measures and the current center-right which in almost four years has not solved the problem. A shame that demonstrates indifference towards an entire sector with the aggravating circumstance of creating conflicts ”.
Not only. According to the farmers “we persevere in error. Even with the interventions on the expensive prices announced after our event in February - explains the director of Coldiretti Cagliari Luca Saba - times are promising to be very long for the same companies: we still have to wait for the Omnibus. We therefore persevere in considering inexplicably the world of fruit and vegetables of series B and in feeding easy contrasts in a very difficult moment in which spirits are understandably exasperated ".
“Cereal growers need more money because hundreds of applications are excluded from the supply chain payments due to lack of funds and serious delays in payments. A sector is that of cereals - continues Saba - which with the outbreak of the war in Ukraine has become fundamental and would need to be supported to produce food at a particularly important moment in history ”.
“To all this are added the national delays on payments relating to the reimbursement of subsidized insurance on which many farmers have been waiting for too many years now. For all these delays - announces the director - starting from the drought of 2017 , a class action led by our lawyers will start very soon ".
(Unioneonline / EC)