Emilia Romagna, why flood-affected farmers attack Agricat (Ismea)
All the criticisms from farmers in Emilia Romagna to the Agricat fund of the Ismea body on post-flood reimbursements
Agricat doesn't work. These are the words of the leaders of the major agricultural workers' associations who have turned to the mutual fund to receive compensation following natural disasters. “The Agricat national mutual fund established by Ismea precisely to compensate for damage caused by frost or floods has rejected most of the requests for help – said president of Confagricoltura Emilia-Romagna, Marcello Bonvicini -. Specifically, only a small number of requests for compensation for frost damage were accepted out of the 5,000 submitted in the region, compared to over 30 thousand hectares of damaged crops".
WHO IS ON THE BOARD OF AGRICAT
As Repubblica writes, the Agricat structure currently has only two employees, two managers for whom it spends 310 thousand euros every year, supported by a resource with a supply contract and three 50 percent employees seconded from Ismea. The president of Agricat is the criminal lawyer Silvia Rodano, while the two councilors are Massimo Tabacchiera, public manager also in Ama, Atac and Rome mobility services, and Lorenzo Viviani, in the last parliamentary legislature of the League.
AGRICAT MUST MANAGE 350 MILLION IN PUBLIC FUNDS
An agile structure, therefore, and yet the funds that Agricat must manage are huge. Established in 2022 by the public body Ismea (Institute of Services for the Agricultural and Food Market), which controls 51% of it, to manage the national mutual fund of the same name established by law 234 of 30 December 2021 for the coverage of damage from floods, frost and drought in agriculture, has an endowment of 350 million per year, 30 percent of which comes from CAP funds and 70 percent from rural development policy resources. 30% of Agricat belongs to Agea, the Agency for agricultural disbursements, while the remaining 19 percent belongs to Sin, the National Information System for the development of Agriculture.
ONLY 30% OF THE DAMAGES SUFFERED TO THE FARMER WHO LET HIS LAND FLOODED TO SAVE RAVENNA
Among those who have not received the requested sums there are also people who are symbols of the 2023 flood . Fabrizio Galavotti, the farmer who allowed his land to be flooded to save Ravenna, received only 30% of the request, 130 thousand euros against 450 thousand costs for lost production. Stories which, as reported by the president of Cia Emilia-Romagna Stefano Francia to Repubblica , represent the tip of an iceberg: "thousands of reports are arriving at trade associations". Davide Venturini, president of Confagricoltura Bologna, explains that "at most 20% is recognised". The regional Coldiretti, explains director Marco Allaria Olivieri, has so far counted "over 3,100 denials, equal to 70% of requests, between frost and flood".
80% OF COMPENSATION CLAIMS REJECTED
As reported by Fatto Quotidiano, Agricat is rejecting almost all requests for compensation (80% of the approximately 5 thousand) and when it does not reject them, it mocks agricultural entrepreneurs with compensation that is reduced to a few pennies in the face of damages amounting to tens of thousands of euro. “We have not yet been able to understand what is happening or how to get out of this absurd situation,” said Stefano Francia, regional president of the CIA, Italian Farmers Confederation al Fatto . “We don't know the answer and we have asked for urgent interventions to correct the mechanism. Agricultural entrepreneurs are exhausted by the difficulties of recent years: the drought, the frosts and finally the flood", added Marcello Bonvicini, head of Confagricoltura Emilia-Romagna. “Agricat, paid for by farmers, was supposed to be an effective tool – explains the CIA in a note – when instead a slow and poorly organized management bureaucracy risks breaking the bank, with the sole result of not passing the resources on to agricultural businesses hit. The Fund was created with the aim of expanding the base of companies that use risk management tools and must therefore be integrated into insurance policies; to date Agricat is completely disconnected from subsidized insurance. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that IT tools and inadequate procedures cause enormous damage to producers by instrumentally shifting the blame onto the many Caa".
TUESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER A MEETING BETWEEN AGRICAT AND ISMEA TO UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED
To take stock of the issue, a meeting will be held on September 3, called by Ismea, a technical table with the national coordination of the Agricultural Assistance Centers to understand what happened. One of the difficulties would lie in sending incomplete documentation. Currently the procedures for sending requests for refreshments, through an electronic portal, are more streamlined but Agricat would have made it known that often the applications, sent through the Agricultural Assistance Centres, are not filled in correctly, perhaps due to poor forms. clear. “we will immediately contact the Government for a clarification meeting – said the regional councilor for Agriculture of Emilia-Romagna Alessio Mammi -, so that the reasons for this senseless decision are explained to us. It will also be an opportunity, as reiterated several times, to point out that the Agricat system is not working and is not guaranteeing resources to companies as quickly as it should – concludes Mammi – putting at serious risk the income and stability of companies that have right to benefit from it".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/emilia-romagna-perche-gli-agricoltori-alluvionati-picchiano-su-agricat-ismea/ on Fri, 30 Aug 2024 12:35:09 +0000.