"The safest country in the world". The safest country in the world. Thus Italy, for the excellence of its agri-food sector, was defined by Bloomberg. Yet the Italians do not know it.
The lack of rigorous information on food, the raging of fake news, improvised experts, and exaggerated alarmisms determine a distorted perception of a pivotal sector of the Italian economy. For this reason, among the requests that some of the major stakeholders have addressed to the future legislature, this morning from the stage of the Food Journalism Festival, there is the improvement of information and training in a more scientific perspective.
"Disinformation creates very serious distortions. Like the 450mila people in Italy today suffering from orthorexia, the pathological obsession for healthy eating, "noted, for example, Luigi Scordamaglia, president of Federalimentare. "We need to put more science into food," said Maria Caramelli, of the Zooprophylactic Institute of Piedmont-Liguria-Vald'Aosta.
This request is also accompanied by the need for greater legality, reaffirmed by Massimo Bongiovanni, president of EuroCoop, and of course by Gian Carlo Caselli, president of the scientific committee of the agro-crime observatory, which calls for a reform to strengthen the penal system against food fraud.
Protecting the real Made in Italy and Italian food sovereignty, especially through a clear origin labeling system recognized at European level, is an urgency that many have emphasized, from Franca Braga di Altroconsumo to Maria Letizia Gardoni, representative of the Coldiretti Youth.
Finally, the problem of productivity and land consumption, highlighted by Umberto Agrimi, of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, and by Gaetano Pascale, president of Slow Food Italy, who finally hopes for a real law to protect the Italian agricultural territory, of today we lose 4 square meters per second.
"All that is left to do is meet next year - concluded La Stampa journalist Maurizio Tropeano - to put the policy under scrutiny and see what has been done".
