It started from Torre di Ruggiero, where an extraordinary meeting of the Calabria Hazelnut Enhancement and Protection Consortium took place, with the participation of producers, representatives of institutions, of the agricultural world and experts in the sector, the request to activate a regional hazelnut table, to discuss the problems that affect the sector also in our region, including climate change and damage caused by wildlife.
A determination that recorded the firm and convinced adhesion of those present and the full convergence also on the part of the representatives of the interested and neighboring municipalities: Torre di Ruggiero, Cardinale, Simbario and Chiaravalle. The director of the Agriculture Department, Francesco Chiellino, expressed the Region’s availability. The Consortium and the producers have the task of putting forward proposals to be examined.
The first emerged already during the Assembly, which constituted a useful and broad opportunity for discussion with a view to future prospects. Preceding an analysis that from a national framework led to the local context.
Irma Brizi, director of the national association “Città della nocciola”, outlined a common reality that from Piedmont, crossing Lazio, reaches Sicily. «Already at a meeting ten years ago we raised the alarm about climate change, which today has changed the world of hazelnuts a little. We are not just talking about quantity, but also about the quality of the product. The hazelnut represents the identity of many territories. Today we must defend quality and tradition. At the national nuts table, we talk above all about promotion and valorization which are very important things. But we are also interested in ensuring that the emergency is welcomed and felt. We need to start from the regional tables, to get to the national tables, to bring the requests relating to the various problems that concern the hazelnut sector: from climate change, to wildlife, to the Asian bug” he urged.
«Climate changes cause hazelnuts to drop and not reach full maturity. Temperature changes due to spring frosts or drought weaken the plant and compromise its production. There are also problems of a phytosanitary nature, of parasites that attack the plant. All factors that lead to serious crop losses. Given that moving production to colder areas would entail costs that are not sustainable for producers and would nullify the work done over the years, we need to think about creating tenders to build irrigation systems, or streamlining the process relating to water supply” observed the president of the Consortium, Giuseppe Rotiroti.
On the wildlife front: «it is disheartening after a year of work to see herds of wild boars in the land that have devastated everything. It feels bad” declared Rotiroti, hence the proposal to “incentivise the selectors for a fallen leader. The containment of the number of ungulates that continuously cause damage to crops cannot be supported by the volunteering of selectors, to whose work the sums that are committed to compensate producers could be allocated. Despite the fences, the damage has increased.”
«We are used to facing bad seasons, we can no longer bear to suffer a calamity like that of wild boars. We must recover the energy and memory of those who worked in the past, to move forward. But choices have to be made. It’s a matter of making a clear choice: stay or leave. We have been talking about this problem for over twenty years and we cannot find ourselves here talking about it next year”, reiterated Piero Martelli, founding member of the Consortium, who observed that the problem of damage caused by wild boars does not only concern the hazelnut sector, but represents a threat to the agricultural sector in general. Concepts shared by Eugenio Fristachi, president of the Wild Boar Containment Committee in Defense of the Territory.
Francesco Maltese, vice-president of the Catanzaro 2 Territorial Hunting Area (ATC), focused on the presence of wild boars in inhabited centers and the morphological change of these ungulates, situations that have been recorded in recent years and which are due to anthropic reasons, such as the availability of food among the waste, the high percentage of uncultivated land. A reminder also of road accidents caused by wild boars. The consideration of the enormous number of wild boars that the volunteers of the selectors and that the extension of the hunting months cannot cope with.
Angelo Politi, director of Confagricoltura Calabria, highlighted: the need for a reform of law n°157 of 1992, “framework law on hunting and protection of wild fauna”, with proposals aimed at making hunting activity more functional to wildlife control and ecosystem balance, such as the extension of huntable areas or the modification of the management of Territorial Hunting Areas, but in reference to which the needs of agriculture clash with a very environmentalist component strong. In reference to climate change, he underlined the need for more careful management of water resources.
Together with the producers also representatives of local institutions.
«The presence of the mayors demonstrates the importance of this assembly» highlighted the mayor of Torre, Vito Roti. We have been talking about wild boars for twenty years, he further remarked, recalling the strong need for a common path to follow. The mayor of Cardinale, Danilo Staglianò, reiterated the need to collaborate so that the hazelnut sector can expand and overcome the crisis. In this sense he declared “work tables are useful”. The presence of the mayor of Simbario, Gennaro Crispo, was also particularly significant, representing for the first time also this municipality which falls within the production area of Tonda Calabrese. Regarding the containment of wild boars, he also asked for more incisive measures. Pina Rizzo, deputy mayor of Chiaravalle, highlighted how producers cannot be asked to make efforts that cannot be further supported and how a prestigious product for the territory, such as the hazelnut, must be protected.
Carolina Scicchitano, director of the “Serre Calabresi” Gal, reiterated the support and closeness of the local Action Group to the Consortium, which has existed in past years with various interventions and cooperation projects, and with the work still underway to bring a finished product onto the market. Outside of the RDP, to deal with climate change, in the new strategy, we could think of pilot projects on precision agriculture.
The manager of the regional Department of Agriculture, Francesco Chiellino, reported how the Consortium represents a particularly important reality for the identity of the territory and how there has always been support for the sector, with tenders dedicated to nuts. Regarding the regional corilicolo table, he declared that the Department will not back down, expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue and assured to act as spokesperson for the requests that emerged from the regional councilor for Agriculture, Gallo.