A sector without peace is that of the production of real Italian clams which have practically disappeared from the fish counters. And very little can be done for fans of one of the must-eat dishes Christmas Eve. If those truthful have been almost completely exterminated since blue crab who plundered them Po Delta farms also of the seed, those of the sea, known as lupins who until now had been saved, suffer due to the wave of mucilage which affected the entire range this summer Adriatic coast.
This is the alarm raised to ANSA by Confcooperative Fedagripescaworried about a business that before the advent of blue crab and of mucilage it was worth it 300 million euros.
The large gelatinous masses in the summer months caused considerable difficulties for fishing by damaging the fish capture tools and now that the algae have settled on the seabed they are a threat to clams, mussels And cockles; species that move little and are dying due toanoxia and of therise in water temperatures. For these reasons the fishermen carried out a additional stop and they ask for a financial support for these days of fishing stop. And if it is increasingly difficult to bring a plate of spaghetti with clams made in Italy, it is boom on the import front where the ones are the masters Portuguese clams.
An investigation of Fedagripesca remember that at home as in the restaurant for 7 out of 8 Italians spaghetti with clams they are among the favorite fish first courses, which they make ‘party’. And right from Portugal an answer could arrive to repopulate them farms in Veneto and Emilia Romagna. But it’s not easy to restart this economywhere Italy was leader in Europe: necessary reclaim the waters from the crab, fence the production areas and return to put the product to be grown in water.
«The problem is precisely the latter – explains Paolo Tiozzo, vice president Confcooperative Fedagripesca – because you need a quantity of seedthe estimated need is billions of specimens true clamimpossible to find and manage with ‘hatchers’ that we have today.”