Who will pick the fruit and vegetables that are at risk of rotting in the fields because there is no manpower after the borders are closed due to the Coronavirus pandemic? The Government's strategy is clear: who did it until last season why work in the fields cannot be improvised, there is a need for competent workers. Which means in Italy above all foreign workers, mostly Romanians. But the matter is not simple, the health of those who will arrive (and if they arrive) must be guaranteed, while those who are already in Italy must be able to remain there in safety in every sense. What if the demand cannot be met? In France and Germany they are moving towards open the links also to generic unemployed. This is what Coldiretti has asked to do, which in these hours in Veneto is collecting the availability of those who are not professional laborers but students, pensioners, layoffs, through the "Job in country" database authorized by the Ministry of Labour. Obtaining the first 1.500 job offers in the Region. However the Minister of Agriculture Teresa Bellanova, who knows very well what the work of a farmhand means because she herself practiced it in her youth, insists on the path traveled so far, calls it the "Italian model".
What does the "Italian model" minister mean?
“Let's start with the data. Employers' associations indicate a seasonal labor shortage of between 270 and 350 workers. Numbers that are far from both those in France, where the seasonal labor would be around 200, and those in Spain, where the data indicate a requirement of 10 units. Over 346 male and female workers from 155 different countries find employment in our countryside. With over 30 million working days, they represent 26,2% of the total work required in the Italian countryside. Our agriculture is therefore also a great laboratory for integration and in those 15 provinces where a good half of employed foreigners are concentrated in the many agricultural districts, immigrant workers represent a well-integrated component in the economic and social fabric. Regular workers who serve in healthy companies, those that do not exploit and are within the rules. At the same time, other so-called irregular workers – 600 according to estimates – who in most cases already work in our territories, live in informal settlements, underpaid and often inhumanely exploited. At the mercy, together with the companies to which they give their arms, of that mafia called illegal hiring. People now even more exposed to health risk and hunger.
Composing this complexity effectively and quickly is the goal we must aim for, without hypocrisy and without putting our heads in the sand. The agricultural and food supply chain, which is confirming all its essentiality and centrality, must be safeguarded, and we must put an end to this scandal of illegal hiring and ghettos once and for all. Because either the state takes charge of these people's lives or criminality exploits them".
What prevents the unemployed from being employed on the basic income lists?
“I could just say: exactly what has prevented it so far. Even if nothing forbids, or has forbidden, looking at agriculture as an employment and income opportunity. Instead it is significant how precisely this question, which obviously is not his alone, brings out the contradictions of a measure that has not worked either as an active labor policy, given the failure to match supply and demand, or as a social inclusion, or as a response to absolute poverty. Once the emergency is over, we will discuss this seriously and rigorously.
I'm working on a solution that gives the necessary answers as quickly as possible. Time is not an independent variable. There is certainly a need for structural, courageous and incisive solutions; clear actions, with rigorous and measurable objectives. Proceeding from emergency to emergency is unthinkable. This is why I spoke of an action plan for agricultural work which contemplates: mapping of agricultural needs; facilitation of returns to Italy and extensions of immigrants' permits; fight against illegal hiring also through regularization; facilitating the recruitment of currently unemployed workers; release of the "DPCM flows 2020", the text of which, already ready and shared between the administrations, can guarantee the conversion of existing seasonal contracts and the use of the 18 quotas of seasonal entries reserved for agriculture and tourism; Registration platform for potential agricultural workers to be implemented very quickly. Preventing distortions and unfair competition is a priority. This is why it is essential both to regularize non-EU citizens who receive job offers and to ensure that income support benefits can be combined with employment relationships for a wider audience that can choose agriculture".
You have requested the automatic renewal of residence permits for those who have already been in Italy for more than 15 June and at least until December. Where are we?
“We worked on it together with Minister Lamorgese and in Cura Italia we have already foreseen the validity of residence permits for seasonal work until 31 December. And that the medical examination of seasonal workers will finally be worth a year, making life easier for workers and businesses."
At what stage is the negotiation with Romania, which we know how to offer a third of the necessary labourers?
“We have started a positive discussion with the Romanian ambassador Bologan, whom I met in recent days. The green corridors that the European Commission has indicated, also under our pressure, to guarantee the supply of basic necessities and the movement of seasonal agricultural workers as well, represent a first important result. Now we have to do the rest. In addition to acquiring the availability of Governments, targeted solutions must be put in place. Having verified the availability of the workers, and indicated to them concrete methods and certain guarantees, also calling the associations into the field. As you see, alongside the composition work on national tables, what we carry out in Europe is also important".
Speaking of refreshments: how and when will they be granted to farmers?
“We will work to ensure that times are as quick as possible and procedures are simplified as much as possible. Companies need liquidity to face the losses of these dramatic weeks and we must do everything to give immediate answers. The agricultural sector is fully covered by Cura Italia and the Credit Decree. And so is fishing. We have allocated 100 million euros to grant guarantees in favor of agriculture and fisheries through ISMEA and set up a 100 million fund to cover interest on bank loans and loans taken out by companies, as well as for the temporary halt of the fishing activities, including in inland waters. Already this week we will be able to share a first text of the implementing decree, to give immediate answers. We are strengthening access to the revolving fund for companies of Cassa depositi e prestiti for financing investments made by companies in the poultry sector at subsidized rates, extending the revolving pledge to all PDO and PGI agri-food products. We are bringing CAP advances to 70%, considerably bringing forward the disbursement date with simplified procedures and without the need for an application, for over 650 beneficiaries and around one and a half billion in liquidity starting from June".
Will the innovative law on illegal hiring, to which you have made a decisive contribution, benefit or not from the conditions posed by the health emergency?
“That law, of which I am proud, is demonstrating all its necessity, effectiveness and rightness. Precisely because it establishes a pact between prevention and repression, and identifies the agricultural network of quality work as an answer to the critical issues of the sector. An instrument that must be strengthened and which must become an important hub in the territories. Fighting illegal hiring and dismantling informal settlements remains, and is once again confirmed, an absolute priority. The corporal is mafia. The ghettos must be dismantled by offering an alternative to those people. And it must be avoided that unmanageable health emergencies explode in the settlements. Regularization of workers, integrated network of services for workers and businesses, housing.
It is necessary to root out those distortions, including exploitation, unfair practices and illegal hiring, which today harm the reputation and attractiveness of a sector that is giving so much.
Last December we announced in Foggia the launch in February of an experimentation on flows for the first time in Italy together with the trade associations. Foggia is one of the three Italian strategic centers for this pilot project. The coronavirus emergency forced us to reschedule our calendars. But he doesn't give up in the fight against this scourge and I intend to return to Capitanata as soon as possible ".
Puglia, in addition to having to face the consequences of the Coronavirus attack, is still grappling with the bacterium that kills olive trees, xylella. How are you working to reconcile the two emergencies?
“Not stepping back a millimeter in the implementation of the Olive Regeneration Plan. Because the future of agriculture will also depend on this, not just in Puglia. It is a commitment that I have made since the first days of my inauguration and that I intend to keep. The timetable for the individual actions is fixed. The first resources will be those intended for the oil mills (35 million), on which Agea is committed, and for compensation for farmers, for a total of 120 million. In the next few days, the Supervisory Committee of the Plan will take office, which I have appointed with the very aim of guaranteeing its implementation. We have also extended the tender for the xylella District to 18 May: 13 million available to the territory for projects that can activate a total of 50".
