A question to the Senate of the Italian Republic addressed to the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida asks for an account of the dysfunctions of AGEA (General Agency for Agricultural Payments) already reported on our GIFT website (Great Italian Food Trade). (1,2)
1) Question to the Senate, introduction
The Senator long-time member Claudio Fazzone – from Fondi, province of Latina, in his fifth legislature with Forza Italia – introduces his question with the following premises:
– ‘the Agency for Agricultural Payments is the paying agency that directly manages at a national level the majority of funds allocated to agriculture with a coordination function also for the Regions in which there are regional paying agencies, directly managing with the new IT system also the OPR ARCEA (Calabria) and ARGEA (Sardinia);
– AGEA, through its director, has repeatedly boasted the effectiveness of its action and the performance of its new IT systems with numerous press releases, as well as in a hearing at the Chamber of Deputies on 3 April 2024, explaining the IT improvement achieved compared to the previous obsolete systems‘.
2) AGEA, ARCEA and ARGEA, technical and management problems
From the (proclaimed) stars to the (desolate) stables, continues Senator Claudio Fazzone:
– ‘from reading the pages of authoritative newspapers (Italia Oggi of January 24, August 21 and August 28, 2024; l’Espresso of August 9, 2024) we find numerous complaints about the malfunctioning of the system: something that is in fact confirmed by the continuous extensions granted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry;
– the questioner has directly verified the existence of numerous complaints, including those made by authorised agricultural assistance centres belonging to historic confederations, such as Confagricoltura, whose technical structure and operational capacity cannot be doubted;
– the numerous reports coming from all over the national territory of competence of AGEA, ARCEA and ARGEA contrast, therefore, with the press releases issued by the director of AGEA, who denies the poor service and always places the responsibility on the work of the assistance centres, considered inadequate for the use of the new system‘.
3) PAC 2024, the dysfunctions of AGEA
The CAP 2024 will be remembered for the systemic dysfunctions of AGEA and the damage it caused to Italian farmers:
– ‘normally the CAP campaign opens in January and closes on 15 May with traditional extensions to 15 June, while this year it should end on 24 September;
– it should also be remembered that on the same day as the application is submitted, by May 15, farmers go to the bank to ask for an advance on the sums they will then receive as aid from the CAP, demonstrating their right to do so with a copy of the application;
– this year, much more than in other years, the CAP advance was awaited like rain on the fields to face with some liquidity the crisis of market prices, the increasing costs and the drought, but it was not possible to access it because the system did not allow obtaining the printed application‘.
4) The information system at the origin of the troubles
The dysfunctions of AGEA in the 2024 CAP campaign, are to be attributed (in primis) to the malfunctioning of the national agricultural information system. The renewal of the SIAN, it should be remembered, was the object of millionaire contracts in favour of various companies which, through a system of Chinese boxes, can be traced back to Bonifiche Ferraresi (BF) SpA and to Nextalia SGR (where the head of Coldiretti Vincenzo Gesmundo sits on the Board of Directors). (1)
The interrogation, in fact, the examination notes that:
– ‘these complications were created by the innovation introduced by the computer system that requires applications to be submitted on reference parcels and no longer on cadastral parcels. This involves a graphic processing based on color homogeneity, a photo interpretation of satellite and drone data. If the declared hectares do not match, a request for re-examination must be submitted so that the parcel photo interpreted by the system can be evaluated by a person;
– the system that is part of the national information system has not been working for months, it seems inadequate to the real needs of the operators and it crashes despite the continuous updating every week: in April there was version 5.1, today there is version 8.6. This is seriously delaying the validation of the graphic company files and consequently the submission of the applications;
– the cumbersomeness of the method is added, which produces many pages for each individual document, even for the smallest companies‘.
5) Unacceptable risks for farmers in Italy
Initial delays continues Senator Claudio Fazzone, now risk causing unacceptable damage to farmers in Italy:
– ‘the malfunctions in the first year of the new programming, net of the proclamations made by AGEA regarding the successes achieved at the IT level, a slowdown in the disbursement of payments was physiological and could even be justified, but considering the current IT confusion there is a risk of jeopardizing not so much the advances as the balances;
– this situation puts the next campaign in doubt and this would not be tolerable given how 2024 is ending‘.
6) Question to Minister Francesco Lollobrigida
On the eve of the G7 in Syracuse – which the minister Francesco Lollobrigida seems to want to transform into an ‘open event’ with over 600 Italian food companies (3) – the questioning of Palazzo Madama focuses on the fundamentals. ‘You want to know:
– whether the Minister in question is aware of the situation of the malfunctions, of the impact that these could have on payments to agricultural companies, crucial for their survival, and of the very recent procedural choices made by AGEA;
– if it deems it necessary to take initiatives in order to avoid any risks that may arise during the advance and final payments phase;
– whether it deems it necessary and urgent, for the protection of agricultural businesses, to evaluate the opportunity to proceed with an extraordinary management of the Agency in order to remove the existing obstacles caused by the current management’.
#VanghePulite
Dario Dongo
Footnotes
(1) Dario Dongo. CAP 2024, technical and management problems in the AGEA system. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade).
(2) Senate of the Italian Republic. Question signed by the Honorable Claudio Fazzone (Forza Italia). Document no. 4-01438, published on 18 September 2024 in session no. 221 https://tinyurl.com/mtcpjvhj
(3) Adriana De Conto. Siracusa prepares for the G7 Agriculture, Lollobrigida: “600 companies, over 200 stands with our jewels” (video). Secolo d’Italia. 19.9.24 https://tinyurl.com/yc7zx9k8
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
