Covid-19. The sale of seeds and seedlings is an essential activity, on par with the trade of food and beverages. The circular 20.3.20 from the Ministry of Health attempts to correct the error contained in the DPCM 8.3.20. But it is not enough. Social and self-consumption agriculture and beekeeping – in addition to peasant agriculture – remain exposed to serious uncertainties that harm millions of inhabitants in Italy. Appeals to the government, the Italian Parliament, and the Antitrust Authority.
Contain, not kill
The DPCM 8.3.20 first implemented the coronavirus containment measures, later strengthened in the subsequent decree #StayAtHome (DPCM 11.3.20). In addition to affirming the decalogue of the Ministry of Health for the prevention of contagion.
Human activities indispensable – therefore excluded from suspension orders – have however been defined, It goes without saying, with hasty approximation. (1) To the point of considering essential tobacco shops, paint stores, and even the sale online By any product. (2) But not also the farmer markets and the horticultural-fruit-nursery structures, both forced to senseless closure. Overlooking an essential concept, food sovereignty. Which is also expressed through agricultural self-production, from the Neolithic onwards.
To make a fruit, you need the seed
Right at this time of the year most crops must be planted or sown to harvest the fruits in a few months. Fruit trees, vineyards, and olive trees need to be pruned now. However, citizens reported to UNCEM (National Union of Mountain Municipal Communities and Entities) that ‘the police were guarding agricultural product stores, verifying that only products for animal feed were purchased.’
March moreover is the busiest month also for nurserymen. Blocking their sales means nullifying all the work and investments made during the winter months. Newly born plants must be planted within a few days or they die. Losing the earnings from this month can lead businesses to permanent closure.
The same products for non-professional agriculture and nursery products, note well, can instead be sold online. Unfair competition ex lege, with serious and unacceptable damage to local stores. Yet another tribute to Amazon, the colossal tax evader who now also endangers workers' lives, exploited like hamsters without appropriate masks. (4) Besides selling illegal pesticides and foodstuffs.
Ministry of Health Circular 20.3.20. The sale of seeds is a necessary activity
Following reports from UNCEM and agricultural associations, on 20.3.20 the Ministry of Health published a circular acknowledging the problematic situation and specifying that the sale of seeds at the agricultural level should be classified as a regulated but permitted activity.
‘The sale of food is non-deferrable, the capacity to produce it is strategic and likewise non-deferrable. (…) If sowing activities were blocked for months, the damage to the food supply chain, which is what concerns this Directorate, would be dramatic with unpredictable repercussions for the country’ (Ministry of Health, circular 20.3.20. See note 5).
Agricultural self-production, unresolved problems
The unresolved problems for self-production agriculture primarily concern the many cases where gardens are not located near those who cultivate them. A widespread phenomenon resulting from the wild urbanization and concreting that afflicted Italy starting from the 1960s and continued until a few weeks ago, when construction sites were shut down due to the coronavirus emergency.
Many families and groups of people use plots of land that are often located outside the narrow boundaries of the 7,904 municipalities of Italy (as of 19.2.20, source Istat). In all these cases, the management of vegetable gardens and fruit trees is also urgent, under penalty of nullifying months of efforts and causing unacceptable food waste. But the seedlings already planted die, the new ones cannot be planted, the necessary food is wasted.
The urban gardens and urban beekeeping are other problems to be solved as soon as possible. These engines of social innovation – essential to guarantee continuous supply of essential goods – have been imprudently closed by many municipalities in Italy, also in application of various and differing regional prescriptions.
Risk assessment and principle of equality
Political and administrative authorities at various territorial levels (State, Regions and Autonomous Provinces, Municipalities) must recognize that the risk of contagion from SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is identical:
– in agricultural and beekeeping activities for self-consumption and social purposes, compared to professional agriculture (regardless of the size of the enterprise),
– in farmers' markets, as well as in traditional distribution outlets (or 'shops') and supermarkets of all sizes. In due respect of the Ministry of Health's Decalogue, always and in any case due.
'The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society characterized by pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men' (Treaty on European Union, Article 2).
It is evident how the production and distribution activities of agri-food products described above are subject to identical risks. Regardless of the business purposes, including cooperative or mutualistic and solidarity or self-consumption. As well as regardless of the Ateco codes that formally distinguish the various professional activities. And it is only on the basis of a distinct risk assessment – completely absent in the aforementioned cases – that restrictive measures can be justified.
Appeal to the Italian government
The Italian government must immediately coordinate the Ministries of Health, Agriculture and the Interior. To clarify the possibility and conditions of access to agricultural land throughout Italy, within 30 km from homes, by those who manage it and those who can contribute to management activities. Through simple prescriptions:
– self-certification, to be prepared also on a mobile phone or handwritten (as an alternative to filling out forms that not everyone can print at home). With specification of reasons and routes, which obviously must also include the delivery of agri-food supplies,
– interpersonal distances, to be always and in any case respected (without applying the unacceptable derogations already provided for in the Protocol 14.3.20, signed by the social parties under the diktat of Confindustria to guarantee the continuity of productions in some cases not at all necessary, e.g. war industry),
– duty to wear a mask, inside vehicles, where the only person each car driver can transport comes from a different household unit.
I farmers' markets They must be reopened in every Region and Autonomous Province of Italy by urgent government decree. Remembering that their prolonged closure causes serious livelihood problems for families of small farmers who live – or rather, lived – from these activities.
Peasant agriculture, the duty of the Italian Parliament
The Italian Parliament must in turn proceed with the approval, which is both imperative and urgent, of the framework bill for the protection and enhancement of peasant agriculture. A legislative project that the two Chambers have let gather dust for 11 years.
The bill was re-presented to the Chamber of Deputies – in the current legislature, on 9.5.19 – by Hon. Sara Cunial. Its provisions comply with the UN Declaration 'on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas', adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 19.11.18.
Farmer markets and speculation, the tasks of the Antitrust Authority
The Antitrust Authority (Italian Competition Authority, AGCM) should initiate an inquiry against all municipal administrations that have closed urban and suburban peasant markets, while allowing the sale of the same categories of products in supermarkets. A disparity in treatment:
– completely unjustified, for the reasons explained in the above paragraph ‘Risk assessment and principle of equality’,
– suitable to alter, as it actually alters, market and competition conditions. Undue favor to the large-scale retail trade (GDO), where peasant market users are forced to turn due to the closure of the latter,
– harmful for consumers, who are thus deprived of the opportunity to buy quality food, often organic, at affordable prices. This is precisely thanks to the disintermediation of distribution channels realized through direct sales, from producer to consumer.
#RestAtHomeButNotInSilence, #Equality!
Dario Dongo and Alessandra Mei
Note
(1) Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers 8.3.20. Further implementing provisions of the decree-law 23 February 2020, no. 6, containing urgent measures on the containment and management of the epidemiological emergency from COVID-19. (20A01522) (Official Gazette General Series no.59 of 08-03-2020)
(2) See Attachment to DPCM 11.3.20 (Official Gazette General Series 11.3.20 no. 64)
(4) NB: the only suitable masks to protect the wearer from the risk of contagion are N95 FFP2 and FFP3 respirators.
About the employer's responsibilities regarding workers' health see
Carla Luisi. Coronavirus, workers stop the Amazon hub in Torrazza: 'Safety is lacking'. La Stampa, 24.3.20,
(5) Ministry of Health Circular 20.3.20,
(6) The use of a mask (even DIY, given the unavailability and illegal yet widespread speculation on prices of N95 FFP2 and FFP3 respirators) is in fact essential to reduce the risk that an infected person, even if asymptomatic, can transmit the Covid-19 virus to others. See https://www.egalite.org/coronavirus-e-mascherine-quali-usare-e-come/
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT – Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in Law at the University of Bologna, she attended the Master in Food Law at the same University. She participates in the WIISE srl benefit team dedicating herself to European and international research and innovation projects.
