In 2023 there will be more than 50,000 hectares infested with grasshoppers in central Sardinia. Worse and worse, with an uncontrolled escalation in a few years.

From the 2,000 hectares estimated in 2019, it had passed in 2020/2021 to 30-40 thousand hectares, to arrive, in 2022, at around 50,000. This will be the worst year, according to Coldiretti.

«Crops, grasslands and pastures are jeopardized as well as the economies of farmers and breeders. In recent years, the complaints but above all our proposals have remained unheeded and we continue with inadequate and disconnected policies due to the absence of real direction ", reads a statement from the trade association, which this morning organized a protest sit-in at the Enas center between Noragugume and Ottana , with farmers and ranchers who have raised the alarm cry of the campaigns for this year too.

During the day, a delegation of eight members, led by the president and director of Coldiretti Nuoro Ogliastra, Leonardo Salis and Alessandro Serra, were heard by the Region and by the Laore agency, in the course of the neighborhood with representatives of the Fao, visiting in the island.

«Since 2019 we had denounced the problem, also bringing our proposals to the attention of politics. Today, years later, we still experience the same drama and for this reason we wanted to make the voices of farmers and breeders heard who have been struggling with this scourge for five years», say Salis and Serra, «we can't go on like this for years anymore and companies are on our knees and for this we want concrete facts ». The same thought also for the farmer Giovanni Mureddu: " The risk is that of having to throw in the towel" , he concludes, "we need certain solutions such as ploughing, because only with dressings you won't go anywhere". Problems that affect all the island's companies including that of Antonello Buttu: he underlines, «there will be more interventions, crops and men but the pasture is invaded with the consequent damages to our companies.