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The approval of the Regional Action Plan against This is what the regional councilor of the M5S, Elisabetta Barbuto, declares, analyzing the provision of the Agriculture Department of the Calabria Region.
«From the analysis of the text an irrefutable truth emerges: the regional council had to agree with us on the technical measures», observes Barbuto. «Many of the cornerstones that we laid down last March 31st in our motion no. 32 – from the obligation to mechanically work the land to eliminate the vector insect, to the forced involvement of ANAS, Provinces and state property managers, up to the substitutive powers and sanctions – have finally been implemented and made operational. If we had acted as promptly as we asked months ago, today we would not find ourselves chasing yet another phytosanitary emergency that threatens our 25 million olive trees.”
“300 thousand euros are a drop in the sea”
However, according to the five-star councilor, the plan prepared by the council led by President Roberto Occhiuto is defective precisely in its structural and economic architecture. «Unfortunately, having implemented the operational indications is not enough», insists Barbuto. «The entire part of financial planning that we had indicated as fundamental has been culpably eliminated. Limiting yourself to allocating 300 thousand euros drawn from administration surpluses is just a drop in the sea, useful for buffering the first expenses in the Taurianova area but completely insufficient to protect the entire regional territory”.
In light of these critical issues, the representative of the M5S addresses a direct request to Governor Occhiuto and to the Councilor for Agriculture Gianluca Gallo to promptly integrate the regional plan by following up on five key points of the motion excluded by the executive:
Unblocking hiring: strengthening and stabilizing the technicians of the Regional Phytosanitary Service, avoiding the systematic use of outsourcing or delegation to other bodies.
Certain funds for Municipalities: the allocation of tied and multi-year resources in the budget, supported by a fund dedicated to local authorities to allow the concrete exercise of substitutive reclamation powers on abandoned private land.
Liquidity for businesses: the immediate activation, through Fincalabria, of subsidized credit instruments and guarantees to allow farmers to purchase agricultural machinery (mulchers, ploughshares) or carry out overgrafting operations.
CSR simplification: the reduction of bureaucracy on the Rural Development Complement Funds through emergency “one-stop” procedures.
Coordination and Crisis Unit: the launch of a political agreement with Basilicata and Puglia for a single management of the South and the simultaneous establishment of a Permanent Crisis Unit with the trade associations for the monthly monitoring of funds and controls.
«The eradication of the Taurianova outbreak requires immediate rigor, but the protection of the entire Calabrian olive cultivation requires strategic vision. I invite councilor Gallo and president Occhiuto not to stop at a halfway intervention: immediately put in place the economic resources and personnel necessary to fully implement all the commitments of our motion”, concludes Barbuto.