Agromafie, Italian sounding, food counterfeiting: the Eurispes-Coldiretti report

Just a few days ago, Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome hosted the presentation of the “Exhibition of deceptions at the table”, organised by Coldiretti with the aim of showing visitors the myriad counterfeit foods circulating around the world and in Italy.

On that occasion, the COLDIRETTI-EURISPES report on agri-food crime in Italy was also presented

Summary document

Agromafie: a turnover of at least 12.5 billion euros

The Eurispes-Coldiretti Report estimates that the overall turnover of the agromafia can be quantified at 12.5 billion euros (5.6% of the total), of which: 3.7 billion euros from reinvestment in legitimate activities (30% of the total) and 8.8 billion euros from illegal activities (70% of the total).

The reinvestment of illicit proceeds in this sector as well has, as a corollary, the conditioning of free economic initiative through fraudulent activities (such as, for example, the improper collection of national and EU funding – consider that in 2009 alone the Guardia di Finanza ascertained the improper collection of over 92 million euros in agricultural aid funding), or through extortion practices, imposing the hiring of labour and, in some cases, forcing operators in the sector to procure their means of production from parties close to criminal organisations, subsequently influencing sale prices (through control of the wholesale distribution and transport phases of agricultural products). Analysis of the results achieved by the police forces shows that the entire agri-food sector is characterised by criminal phenomena linked to smuggling, counterfeiting and the adulteration of food and agricultural products and their certified trademarks, but also by the phenomenon of “caporalato” (illegal gangmastering), which involves the exploitation of irregular farm labourers, with the resulting evasion of taxes and social security contributions. The damage to the social and economic system is therefore manifold, ranging from the danger to the health of final consumers to the distortion of the regular functioning of the agri-food market.

In the specific case of the Italian agri-food sector, according to the Eurispes-Coldiretti Report, the overall added value (on average 52.2 billion euros per year over the five-year period 2005-2009) represents, for criminal organisations, a strong incentive, in terms of profit maximisation, to invest the proceeds of illegal activities in the sectors of agriculture, hunting and forestry (average added value 26.2 billion euros, 1.9% of the national economy), the food, beverage and tobacco industry (average added value 24.6 billion euros, 1.8% of the national economy), and fishing, fish farming and related services (average added value 1.4 billion euros, 0.1% of the national economy); the lower attractiveness, in terms of investment profitability, of the agri-food sector compared with other higher value-added sectors (real estate, construction, transport, health and social care) is offset by the persistence and, in some cases, the worsening of multiple critical factors (multiplier effect), such as: a 15.9% drop in the number of workers and a 35.8% drop in real agricultural income per worker between 2000 and 2009; the significant and widespread collapse of producer prices; the absolute prevalence of sole proprietorships (87.2% of active businesses) compared with partnerships and limited companies (8.9% and 2.4% of active businesses respectively); the high prevalence of small and medium-sized enterprises, often family-run, and of the underground economy.

agromafie_falsemozzarelleOrganised crime: a genuine financial holding company. Over time, organised crime has managed to consolidate and, in some cases, strengthen its status as a major financial holding company, capable of operating, albeit to varying degrees, across the entire national territory and in almost all the economic and financial sectors of the country, with an overall turnover estimated by Eurispes at around 220 billion euros a year (11% of GDP).

Alongside its criminal activities, organised crime has in fact developed a growing capacity to infiltrate the Italian business fabric, using it as a privileged venue for laundering money derived from illegal activities.

This “entrepreneurial” vocation, which finds even more fertile ground in the current climate of severe and widespread economic crisis (owing to the enormous financial resources at its disposal), manifests itself by following the principles and rules of finance, first and foremost that of diversifying risk and the investment portfolio. With profit maximisation (that is, the economic return on investments) as its primary objective, the organised crime holding company also tends to favour the economic sectors and segments capable of generating higher added value, such as: real estate; trade (wholesale and retail); transport, warehousing and communications; construction; health and social care. There is, however, a third aspect that takes on particular importance for the composition of the holding company's portfolio, capable of generating a multiplier effect on the propensity to invest (in specific territorial contexts and economic sectors) based solely on the needs of diversification and profit maximisation. In particular, the possibility that the resources available to organised crime replace those from official channels (public institutions and the banking system) and, consequently, the level of mafia penetration in a specific economic sector grow when circumstances such as the following arise: a severe economic crisis (falling turnover, orders, employment and investment); an excessive imbalance between the supply of and demand for financing; a business fabric characterised by the prevalence of small and medium-sized enterprises (more exposed to the risk of usury, racketeering and extortion because of greater difficulties in accessing the credit system); a wider spread of the underground economy. The three different aspects (risk diversification, profit maximisation, multiplier effect) influence organised crime's investment choices in profoundly different ways, complementing or offsetting one another depending on the economic and territorial context.

Agromafie: tentacles in the land

Mafia organisations tend to strengthen their infiltration and penetration of the business world and the legal economy, demonstrating a particular capacity for modernisation and a keen eye for technological development and economic transformation.

In agriculture, the main crimes attributed to mafia organisations range from ordinary thefts of equipment and farm machinery to livestock rustling, from clandestine slaughtering to crop damage, from usury to extortion racketeering, from illegal construction to the plundering of forest resources, right through to illegal gangmastering and fraud committed at the expense of the European Union.

The agromafie concentrate their illegal activities above all in the southern territories, finding rich nourishment in the difficulties faced by farming businesses increasingly exposed to the devastating effects of the scarce availability of adequate financial resources. Thus it happens that investment opportunities in the countryside dwindle miserably while, at the same time, access to bank credit proves difficult, partly because of the very high cost of money. The need for immediate credit inevitably drives farming entrepreneurs to seek new forms of financing: usury and racketeering are, as is well known, the illegal activities that mafia clans have always controlled.

Moreover, as denounced by Coldiretti, criminal organisations, through the aforementioned extortion practices, end up driving up the prices of consumer goods. In this way the mafia reconsolidates its role as a protection-extortion industry, which has characterised it from its origins, effectively taking political and economic control of businesses and entrepreneurs.

Not only that: by intervening in the price-formation mechanism, it positions itself as a powerful intermediary between the places of production and consumption, taking on the identity of an autonomous centre of power. Through its system of affiliated or connected businesses, the “Mafia” enterprise is able, as highlighted by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate, to condition and control the entire agri-food supply chain, «from agricultural production to the arrival of goods at the ports, from wholesale markets to large-scale retail, from packaging to marketing». In effect, the progressive spread of the agromafie translates into a loss of social security for citizens and an impoverishment of local economies. In times of economic globalisation and financial speculation, the mafias have profoundly changed their

economic and financial strategies of penetration and illicit enrichment: through monetary integration processes and the tools provided by technological innovation, they have made the financial flows used to convert illicit money harder to trace, also using “electronic money” alongside the traditional venues of money laundering.

The agromafie invest their rich proceeds largely in agricultural activities, in the commercial sector and in large-scale retail.

Another strand in which agri-crime manifests itself is the counterfeiting of trademarks and sales packaging of agricultural products. According to Coldiretti: «The pervasiveness and scale of the fake Made in Italy phenomenon and the turnover connected with illegal conduct or improper commercial practices in the agri-food sector are,

by now, so significant that one can rightly speak of the development of genuine Agromafie, whose growth and expansion appear to be supported by the inadequacy of the system of controls and of the communication of data and information, both with regard to the import phase of agri-food products and with regard to the subsequent processing, distribution and sale operations».

The agricultural mafia does not stray far from its land of origin and controls every part of it; every single event is heard, intercepted and appropriated. The 'Ndrangheta, while constantly seeking to expand across the entire national territory (and beyond), never relinquishes social and economic control of the Calabrian territory; in particular, it asserts its dominance over agricultural activities and sheep farming while, at the same time, contriving to perpetrate fraud against the European Community (consider the phenomenon of the so-called “paper oranges”).

In Campania, the Camorra clans invest their illicit capital by buying up farms, vast plots of land and several dairies. The Camorra reasserts its strong criminal identity, rooted in its areas of origin, a deviant subculture fuelled by phenomena of social disintegration, and develops according to behavioural models that tend to attack the healthy fabric of society, the legal economy. In Campania, the agromafie phenomenon is intertwined with other types of crime typical of the Camorra clans: the illegal disposal of waste and the resulting contamination of land and aquifers. Criminal action against farmers is carried out through repeated arson attacks, thefts of farm equipment and livestock, intimidation and threats. Furthermore, the Camorra holds an exclusive monopoly on the control of non-EU labour, employed mainly in the tomato harvest. The DIA reports, in particular, the involvement of mafia clans in running the affairs of the fruit and vegetable market of Fondi in the province of Latina, whose commercial potential is among the largest in Europe. Moreover, more recent investigations confirm the penetration of Camorra agri-crime into other Italian regions, such as Umbria, where mafia interests are manifesting themselves in the agricultural sector.

In Sicily, a major and sensitive investigation has been launched to analyse Cosa Nostra's infiltration of the large fruit and vegetable market of Vittoria, in the province of Ragusa: it would appear that the dark thread of the agromafie governs the main arteries of the fruit and vegetable trade, through the hubs of Vittoria and Fondi, all the way to the powerful Milanese commercial area. The mafia, moreover, would secure for itself the exclusive right to decide the sale price of goods, arbitrarily supplanting the producing companies, which see their revenues gradually wither away.

Nor is Basilicata immune, a region considered until a few years ago to be sheltered from serious criminal phenomena and now regarded as the centre of violent and criminal episodes that affect the agricultural sector in particular (assaults, thefts of farm machinery and produce, livestock rustling and, in general, racketeering across the entire supply chain are the main crimes).

According to the Eurispes-Coldiretti Report, the agromafie, in this period of fragile certainties and widespread social insecurity, are re-establishing their role of economic and social mediation, their identity as a “protection-extortion industry”, a malevolent dispenser of security and reassurance for the free exercise of farming enterprise. The criminal mindset of the mafia cares nothing for the beauty of places or the promotion of the agricultural products of the territories; its actions are not aimed at the interest of the community but, on the contrary, through the shadowy manoeuvres of adulterating and counterfeiting food products, it threatens social wellbeing and the very food safety of the individual consumer.

The fact remains that organised crime not only continues to entrench itself in the southern regions, damaging an economy already weak in other respects, but is also expanding massively in the North of the Peninsula and, in particular, in the large metropolitan areas, where groups linked to the mafia, 'ndrangheta and camorra penetrate the apparatus of local authorities to control the procedures for awarding contracts and public works.

Furthermore, given that the largest share of the food processing industry by volume of production and turnover is located in those same regions of the Centre-North, one cannot ignore the fact that the countless series of frauds committed against consumers through what we might call the “theft” of the material and immaterial identities of authentic Made in Italy takes place precisely where the calls for free market competition and the criticisms of institutional dysfunction at the other end of the country are loudest.

In this sense, one of the most controversial figures is that of the so-called “white-collar” operators working in the agri-food sector, who are acquiring a strategic role for the criminal organisations involved in the agromafie business and interested above all in shifting the axis of illegality towards a neutral, borderline zone in which it becomes increasingly difficult to trace the crime.

Not just Agromafia: Italian sounding, when the crime is counterfeiting

Italian sounding is the most widespread and best-known form of counterfeiting and fake Made in Italy in the agri-food sector. Increasingly often, international agri-food piracy uses geographical names, trademarks, words, images, slogans and recipes that evoke Italy to advertise and market products that have nothing to do with the country. Worldwide, estimates indicate that the turnover of Italian sounding exceeds 60 billion euros a year (164 million euros a day), a figure 2.6 times higher than the current value of Italian agri-food exports (23.3 billion euros in 2009).

The direct economic effects of Italian sounding on exports of genuinely Made in Italy agri-food products inevitably translate into indirect effects on the trade balance, which has been in constant deficit over the past decade (3.9 billion euros in 2009).

According to the Eurispes-Coldiretti Report, to balance the trade account of the Italian agri-food sector, with imports unchanged, it would be enough to recover foreign market shares worth the economic equivalent of 6.5% of the current turnover of Italian sounding.

Recovering market shares worth more than 6.5%, conversely, would have ensured a trade surplus, with positive effects on the GDP of the agri-food sector and of the entire national economy.

We are facing a global deception of consumers that causes enormous economic and reputational damage to Italian production and exports of agri-food products. The examples are countless and vary both in product type and in country of origin: if Parmesan is the tip of the iceberg, found all over the world, there is also the Romano produced in Illinois with cow's milk instead of sheep's milk, the Parma sold in Spain with no regard for the rules of the Parmigiano Reggiano production specifications, the Danish and Swedish Fontina very different from that of the Val d'Aosta, the American Asiago and Gorgonzola, and the German Cambozola, a crude imitation of the famous blue-veined cheese.

The list is long for cured meats too, with the global market's tables featuring pancetta, coppa and Busseto prosciutto Made in California, as well as fake Toscano and Milano salamis and even soppressata calabrese, protected by the European Union as a designation-of-origin product. Nor is there any shortage of imitations among the iconic products of the Mediterranean diet, such as Pompeian olive oil, which has nothing to do with the famous excavations but is produced in Maryland, or the Romulo brand produced in Spain with a label depicting a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. Spaghetti, pasta milanesa, tagliatelle and capellini milaneza produced in Portugal, Ronzoni linguine, tuscan risotto and polenta from the USA, and Di Peppino tricolour penne and fusilli produced in Austria are some examples of counterfeit first courses; while among condiments the standouts are San Marzano: peeled tomatoes grown domestically in the USA, Chinese hillside cherry tomatoes and bolognese sauce from Australia.

The common denominator of the above examples of imitation and counterfeiting of Italian agri-food products is the motivational drive from which such behaviour originates and spreads globally. That motivational drive consists in the opportunity, for a foreign company, to gain a competitive advantage over its rivals in its own reference market by improperly associating its products with values recognised and appreciated by foreign consumers — genuine Made in Italy agri-food, first and foremost quality.

Every year 51 billion euros are stolen from genuine Made in Italy

In 2009 the Italian food industry recorded a total turnover of 120 billion euros (source: Federalimentari), while the agri-food sector proper, excluding forestry, recorded a turnover of 34 billion euros (source: Ismea). The overall turnover amounts to around 154 billion euros; in essence, a turnover that in 2009 was equal to around 10% of Italy's 2009 GDP, according to the Eurispes-Coldiretti Report.

In 2009 our country imported around 27 billion euros' worth of raw materials, which were alternatively:

- sold directly in our country, and therefore with a “Made in (country of origin)” label;

- processed through at least one stage by the food industry and which, under current legislation, may bear the Made in Italy label.

It should be remembered that, of all the imported raw materials, a portion is classified as temporary imports. Temporary imports are imports of products that are then resold on foreign markets after some processing carried out in Italy, that is, imports of goods from a foreign state

introduced temporarily into the national territory for the purpose of processing (working, transformation).

These goods, although containing non-Italian agricultural products, may, under current legislation, be resold abroad under the Made in Italy label; this means that, of the 27 billion euros of imports, a portion of these imported raw materials was certainly re-exported as Made in Italy.

But assessing the scale of the phenomenon based on temporary imports alone tends to underestimate it, for two substantial reasons: on the one hand, it is the companies themselves that can decide whether to declare their imports to customs as temporary or definitive; if they declare them as temporary they obtain tax advantages which may not be worth the risk of being “unmasked” by consumers as companies whose products are not 100% Made in Italy; on the other hand, imports can be declared temporary only if the products are subsequently re-exported; consequently, assessing the scale of the phenomenon based on these alone would fail to account for all those products imported from abroad, processed in Italy and sold on our national territory which, under current legislation, may bear the Made in Italy label.

It is estimated that at least one in three agri-food products imported into Italy is processed in our country and then sold on our domestic market and abroad under the Made in Italy label.

On the balance of payments this means that at least 9 billion euros, in 2009 alone, were spent to import foreign food products that were then resold as products born in Italy.

But the striking figure from this point of view emerges when this proportion is applied to the overall turnover of 154 billion euros: around 33% of the total output of agri-food products sold in Italy and exported, equal to 51 billion euros in turnover, derives from raw materials that are imported, processed and sold under the Made in Italy label, since legislation allows it, even though in reality they may come from anywhere on the planet.

Furthermore, in employment terms, Italian PDO and PGI products are an important source of income for at least 250,000 people; if one also considers, in addition to these, the workers involved in producing Italy's 4,528 traditional agri-food products (products whose processing methods are consistent throughout the production territory and have been established for at least 25 years), a far from negligible share of agri-food sector workers depends on Made in Italy turnover, estimated to have employed 1.2 million people in 2009. Moreover, it should be borne in mind that the activity of Italian sounding producers and counterfeiters does not affect Made in Italy products only in the countries where they are already established, but places a serious mortgage on their development in emerging markets, especially in those markets that have not yet fully expressed their potential demand. These are markets, such as China, made up of hundreds of millions of people whose purchasing power will tend to grow over time.

Food counterfeiting: beyond Italian sounding, the empty jars of the agri-food industry

The list of agricultural and agri-food industry products for which origin labelling is not compulsory, making them effectively impossible to trace, is substantial and includes, among others: pasta; cheeses; long-life milk; pork, rabbit, sheep and goat meat; tomato derivatives; processed fruit and vegetables; cereal derivatives.

The resulting information asymmetry caused by the lack of origin labelling for these mass-consumption products (170 million kg a year in the case of mozzarella) inevitably translates into: – an opportunity for all those food industry companies that, driven by the need to cut production costs, decide to change their raw material procurement strategies, turning mainly or exclusively to foreign markets rather than the domestic one;

- a risk for the entire Italian agricultural supply chain, in both economic terms (reduction in agricultural production, in farm-gate prices and in access to the large-scale retail network) and employment terms (business closures, redundancy schemes, unemployment);

- a deception of consumers, who are unable to distinguish between a product from an entirely Italian agricultural supply chain (genuine Made in Italy) and a product imported from abroad, and end up making consumption choices based solely on price.

Some indications of the scale of the problem of white-collar fakes and of the counterfeiting risks linked to this second fake Made in Italy phenomenon — difficult to quantify given the impossibility of obtaining precise data on the individual companies that import food products from abroad — can be gleaned from an analysis of imports of individual agri-food products, broken down by type, country of origin and province of destination.

Durum wheat. Durum wheat has for years been one of Italy's main agricultural import commodities, both in quantitative terms (1.8 million tonnes in 2010) and in economic terms (387 million euros). Overall, 75.1% of durum wheat was imported in 2010 from Canada, Mexico and the United States (77% by value), against a remaining 24.9% from the rest of the world (23.1% by value).

Around one million tonnes of durum wheat (56.5% of the total) were destined for the province of Bari alone.

The figures for the provinces of Foggia, Parma, Chieti and Ravenna are also significant (imports of between 118,247 and 158,075 tonnes in 2010). Bari confirms its primacy over the other Italian provinces also in terms of the economic value of durum wheat imports, which in 2010 stood at 209.7 million euros (54.1% of the total).

Tomatoes. In 2010 alone, Italy imported from abroad around 10,004 tonnes of fresh or chilled tomatoes, with an economic value exceeding 12 million euros (definitive imports only). The imported goods came mainly from Israel (7,319 t, 73.2% of the total) and Morocco (1,935 t, 19.3% of the total).

Overall, the economic value of imports of fresh and chilled tomatoes from the two countries amounts to around 11 million euros (92.7% of the total). Also significant are the figures on the provinces of destination of the imported products, with Savona in first place (7,319 t, worth 9.3 million euros) followed by Turin (1,914 t, worth 1.7 million euros).

In the same year, imports of prepared or preserved tomatoes (food industry products) reached 153,358 tonnes (worth 89.5 million euros). Temporary imports accounted for 70.8% of the total in quantitative terms (108,509 tonnes) and 73.8% in terms of economic value (66 million euros). This means that the absolute majority of prepared or preserved tomatoes imported from abroad undergo working and processing in Italy and are subsequently exported. The main country of import is China, from which 120,892 tonnes of prepared and preserved tomatoes arrived in Italy in 2010 alone (78.8% of the total, worth 65.3 million euros), followed by the United States, with 30,327 tonnes of imported goods (19.8% of the total) worth more than 22 million euros. The province of Salerno is the destination of 97.3% of prepared or preserved tomatoes imported from abroad (97.4% in terms of economic value). The percentage of imported products destined for the other Italian provinces is below 1%.

Grapes and wine products. In 2010, Italy imported from abroad 32,219 tonnes of fresh or dried grapes (worth 53.9 million euros). The countries from which the largest quantities of grapes come are Turkey, Chile and Egypt (53.3%, 16.4% and 8.5% of the total respectively), with an economic value of imports exceeding 41 million euros (77.6% of the total). In the same year, our country imported from abroad around 62,375 tonnes of wines from fresh grapes, almost all from the United States and only marginally from Chile, Argentina and other countries. While imports of fresh and dried grapes are exclusively definitive, in the case of wines from fresh grapes there are some, albeit marginal, cases of re-imports and temporary imports (4.9 tonnes and 300 kg respectively in 2010).

As regards the province of destination of the imported products, for wines from fresh grapes there is a significant concentration of imports (in quantitative terms 96.3% of the goods are destined for the province of Cuneo, 89.1% in terms of economic value), while for fresh and dried grapes there is greater territorial uniformity (with the exception of the province of Genoa, the destination of 25.2% of imports). Meat. Another commodity segment recording significant volumes of Italian imports from abroad is meat, with 62,241 tonnes of goods imported in 2010 and an economic value exceeding 328.4 million euros.

Beef is Italy's main import commodity (41,987 tonnes in 2010, worth 261.3 million euros), followed by sheep and goat meat (5,708 tonnes, worth 29 million euros) and poultry (3,909 tonnes, worth 9 million euros). Overall, meat from animals in these top three product categories accounts for 83% of the total quantity of imported meat (51,605 tonnes) and 91.3% of its economic value (299 million euros).

As with milk and milk derivatives, meat imports are predominantly definitive and only marginally temporary (98.4% and 1.6% of the total respectively).

The latter are, moreover, attributable exclusively to beef (918 tonnes, worth 5.1 million euros), pork (23 tonnes, worth 136,000 euros) and, marginally, other meats and edible offal.

As for the destination of imported meat, finally, the provinces of Northern Italy take the lead: 62.9% of imported beef (26,388 tonnes) arrives in the provinces of Modena, Verbania, Milan and Reggio Emilia (23.9% in the province of Modena alone), while the same percentage, expressed in terms of the economic value of the imported goods, amounts to 64.3% of the total (168 million euros); 50% of the sheep and goat meat imported by Italy is destined for the provinces of Piacenza, Reggio Emilia, Milan and Varese (2,800 tonnes, worth 14 million euros); 65.9% of poultry meat arrives in the provinces of Verbania, Piacenza and Genoa, against a remaining 34.1% destined for the other Italian provinces. The economic value of poultry meat imports destined for the provinces of Verbania, Piacenza and Genoa amounts to 67.1% of the total (around 6 million euros).

Virgin and extra-virgin olive oil. What makes the case of Italian imports of virgin and extra-virgin olive oil particularly significant and, at the same time, worrying is the absolute prevalence of temporary imports over definitive ones.

In 2010 alone, Italy imported from abroad 42,956 tonnes of virgin and extra-virgin olive oil (economic value 94.6 million euros), of which: 32,623 tonnes (75.9% of the total) of imported virgin and extra-virgin olive oil that underwent working and processing and was subsequently re-exported abroad (temporary imports), with an economic value of 71.4 million euros (75.5% of the total); 10,332 tonnes (24.1% of the total) of definitively imported oil, with an economic value of 23.1 million euros (24.5% of the total).

The province of Pavia is the destination of 33.3% of the quantity of virgin and extra-virgin olive oil (14,310 tonnes, economic value 32.2 million euros), against 19.6% of oil destined for the province of Lucca (8,437 tonnes, economic value 18.5 million euros) and 10.1% destined for the province of Genoa (4,318 tonnes, economic value 9.5 million euros).

Milk and milk derivatives. During 2010, Italy imported from abroad around 16,214 tonnes of milk and milk-derived products, with a statistical value of around 83 million euros.

Definitive imports accounted for 91.5% of the total in quantitative terms (14,845 tonnes of goods) and 94% of the total in economic terms (78.4 million euros), while the quantity of milk and milk-derived products imported temporarily was 1,368 tonnes, with a statistical value of around 4.8 million euros. The main import category is cheeses and dairy products (88.1% of the total in quantitative terms), accounting for 14,292 tonnes of goods (worth 77.3 million euros), almost all imported definitively. Among the provinces of destination, Milan leads the way (around 10,000 tonnes of goods, 70.3% of the total), followed by Venice (806 tonnes of goods, 5.6% of the total) and Varese (725 tonnes of goods, 5% of the total). Overall, these top three provinces receive 81% of Italian imports of cheeses and dairy products (84.8% in terms of value).

The second product category comprises non-concentrated milk and cream, with 1,346 tonnes of goods imported in 2010 and an economic value of around 4.6 million euros. Temporary imports account for almost all of it (99% of the quantity and 99.5% of the economic value), with temporary imports standing at 1,334 tonnes in 2010 (worth 4.5 million euros). In terms of quantity, Ancona holds first place among provinces of destination for imports of non-concentrated milk and cream (1,340 tonnes, 99.5% of the total quantity and 99.9% of the total value).

An Italian and signed supply chain

Within the agri-food supply chain, agriculture is the segment with the least bargaining power and the lowest profits of all the players operating in it. Despite the counter-cyclical trend in demand for food products, which remains stable even in periods of economic downturn, farming businesses have suffered greatly in recent times because of the sharp fall in farm-gate prices, to which must be added the sharp rise in the costs of the means of production.

There are many causes that make agriculture the weak link in the agri-food supply chain, ranging from the excessive fragmentation of businesses to the lack of transparency in price formation, from the lack of competition that would stimulate the market and prevent it from becoming stagnant to the excessive number of intermediaries, with the consequent multiplication of costs, from the insufficiency, inadequacy and inefficiency of logistics platforms and storage facilities to the excessive power held by large-scale organised retail, right up to agri-food counterfeiting and imitation, whose value is three times that of original Made in Italy exports.

The idea, the project and the commitment proposed by Coldiretti to combat this state of affairs is the creation of an agricultural supply chain that is Italian and signed: completely Italian, because all processes must take place in Italy, with rigorously Italian products, managed — wherever possible along all the stages — mainly by farmers; signed because it is a supply chain whose products are characterised by the distinctive traits of their places of origin and production, that is, products immediately recognisable as totally Italian, thanks to origin labelling, to the transparency of the supply chain and of price formation, and to the bond with their territory.

In this way the pact of trust that can confidently be built with consumers would succeed in restoring Italian agriculture to a leading position in the economic landscape and within the supply chain, with evident positive economic and reputational repercussions, not only for agriculture itself, but for all the economic forces and operators involved in or interested in the agri-food supply chain.

The production of the 1st Report on agri-food crime in Italy was made possible thanks to the scientific contribution of Coldiretti, Ismea, the Arma dei Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza, the Corpo Forestale dello Stato, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office and the Customs Agency.

Special thanks for their valuable contribution to the research go to: Raffaele Guariniello, Gennaro Marasca, Vincenzo Macrì, Antonio D'Amato, Giovanni Conzo.

Eurispes also thanks: the border inspection posts, the Maritime, Air and Border Health Offices, the UVACs, the local health authorities (inspection activities), ARPA, the experimental zooprophylactic institutes, the Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Repression of Agri-food Products, and OLAF.

SOURCE: www.agroalimentarenews.com