“A new portal that aims to make the lives of farmers easier, to make the relationship with the department simpler, faster and more direct: another step in the process of simplification and de-bureaucratization that we have carried out in recent years to allow those who work every day in the fields and in companies to access information more easily, learn about the opportunities available, save precious time, and also check the status of procedures and payments online”.
This is what the regional councilor for Agriculture, Gianluca Gallo, declared, speaking at the press conference to present the new institutional portal of the CSR Calabria 2023-2027, the rural development complement of the Calabria region, created to make access to services and opportunities intended for the Calabrian agricultural sector more immediate, accessible and transparent.
The general director of the Agriculture department, Giuseppe Iiritano, and the technical officer Pia Santelli also took part in the meeting, illustrating the main characteristics and functions of the platform.
The site, created as part of the digitalisation process promoted by the Calabria Region, was designed to respond to the concrete needs of farmers, businesses and citizens, making consultation of tenders and information related to regional programming more immediate.
“In recent years – underlined Councilor Gallo – we have worked to make tenders more streamlined, speed up procedures and reduce bureaucratic requirements. Our department has made important steps forward in terms of efficiency and administrative capacity, thanks to the commitment of the managers, officials and professionals who work there. Technological innovation must accompany this change and translate into concrete benefits for farmers”.
Councilor Gallo then announced a further innovation destined to significantly impact the relationship between agricultural companies and the Region: “Within a month we plan to also activate a reserved platform, accessible through SPID, which will allow each farmer to know directly online the status of their practices, the progress of financing, the payment situation and information relating to agricultural diesel”.
During his speech, Gallo also recalled the difficulties experienced by the agricultural sector, expressing closeness to the operators involved in the protests of recent days: “We have great respect for the agricultural world and we are convinced that these protests are legitimate. I have stopped at the demonstrations several times to confront the farmers directly, listen to their difficulties and their requests. The Region – he continued – intervened promptly with resources from its own budget. By will of President Roberto Occhiuto, 15 million euros were allocated, part of which will also be allocated to the agricultural sector to compensate farmers for the higher costs of agricultural diesel. Certainly, the problems of the sector are also structural: on the one hand, the need to guarantee reciprocity in the rules on imports of products from countries that are not subject to the same controls and which have much lower labor costs; on the other, the difficult relationship with large-scale organized distribution, which sees very low prices paid to producers compared to decidedly high consumer prices and adequate for our farmers, as it should be”.
“The portal is already online – explained the general director Iiritano – and is fully compatible with smartphones and tablets and has more advanced search functions, which allow you to identify tenders, activities and opportunities in a simple and interactive way. We want to continue to improve it by listening to those who use it and for this reason we will activate a section dedicated to user suggestions, because the objective is to build a tool that is increasingly closer to the real needs of the territory”.
“We wanted to create – explained Pia Santelli – a tool capable of truly putting the farmer and the entrepreneur at the centre, making the opportunities of rural development more accessible and the relationship with the administration even more direct and effective. The CSR is not just tenders and administrative procedures but also innovation, knowledge and valorisation of the best experiences of our agriculture”.
Among the main innovations are the notice sheets, which organically collect all the elements necessary to know the opportunities available, from the general contents to the requirements and technical aspects for participation. These are accompanied by a FAQ section, organized by topic and linked to the individual interventions, in which the clarifications provided by the administration in response to users’ questions will be published, so as to make them useful to the entire audience of beneficiaries.
Ample space is also reserved for innovation, knowledge and good practices. The portal will host positive experiences carried out in the area, projects and testimonies from ambassadors of the Calabria Region, with the aim of enhancing the results of the programming and offering ideas to young people, entrepreneurs and local entities interested in investing in the agricultural sector.
A special section dedicated to transparency will also allow you to consult the data relating to the resources committed, the expenditure incurred and the progress of the interventions, offering an updated vision of the implementation of the programme. The platform is completed by news, alerts, documents and a channel through which users can send suggestions to improve services.