A multilevel approach in the fight against Agromafie. Hearing of the President of Eurispes, Gian Maria Fara, at the ‘Ecomafie Commission’ chaired by MEP Jacopo Morrone

Yesterday, 8 July 2024, at Palazzo San Macuto, the hearing of the President of Eurispes, Gian Maria Fara, was held at the ‘Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Activities Connected with the Waste Cycle and other Environmental and Agro-Food Offences’, chaired by MEP Jacopo Morrone.
In illustrating the Institute’s activities, the President of Eurispes, Gian Maria Fara, emphasised the Institute’s constant commitment, since the early 1990s, to monitoring and bringing to light illicit phenomena in the agri-food and environmental spheres, starting from the early work on ecomafias carried out in collaboration with Legambiente and the Carabinieri Corps to the constant monitoring work on agromafie carried out together with the Fondazione Osservatorio sulla criminalità nell’agricoltura e sul sistema agroalimentare – whose Scientific Committee is chaired by Gian Carlo Caselli – promoted by Coldiretti.
Among the many topics discussed at the hearing was the phenomenon of Italian sounding, i.e. the trade in products that exploit images, names, words, and colours that recall Italy, misleading the consumer into believing they are Italian products when they are not. This is an illegal activity that, together with the counterfeiting of consumer goods including foodstuffs, jeopardises ‘Made in Italy’ products and, in some cases, even the health of consumers, giving criminal organisations the opportunity to profit. The issue of agri-food crimes and crime in the sector now has a transnational dimension, hence the need for unambiguous legislation for all countries.
The President also pointed out the shift from Italian sounding to Italian laundering, with segments of our economy being used to launder capital of ambiguous origin. The agri-food business is multi-billion dollar and criminal organisations insinuate themselves into all stages, from distribution, to transport, to sales, with investments even in large-scale retail chains, and this happens throughout the country, from the countryside of the South to the Centre-North.
The President of Eurispes then highlighted the phenomenon of the shift in the axis of illegality towards a ‘neutral zone’ where it is more difficult to identify crimes, and this is also thanks to the so-called ‘white collar’ workers in the sector, who are strategic figures for the targets of criminal organisations. Under the lens of the police and the judiciary, there is also the ability of agromafias to hoard large flows of European funding intended for the agricultural sector. Hence the call for a strengthening of control systems, which should also be extended to the risk of usury, which, according to the annual surveys on the population carried out by Eurispes, affects on average one in 10 citizens.
During the hearing, a focus was devoted to ‘caporalato’ – the phenomenon of illegal recruitment – and the sociologist Marco Omizzolo, an expert and researcher from Eurispes, was heard to represent the phenomenon through data and scenario analyses also at an international level.
Finally, the Institute’s latest estimates on agropharma turnover put it at around EUR 24.5 billion in 2019, but the business is growing year on year. Agromafias, therefore, are developing into more complex and sophisticated organisms that must be fought with a multi-level and multi-system approach.
On the sidelines of the hearing, President Jacopo Morrone recalled that the Commission had opened a line of enquiry into the counterfeiting of agri-food and agri-industrial products, setting itself ‘the task of investigating these phenomena, which are increasingly linked to organised crime. Made in Italy’ is a heritage of our country with all that it entails in terms of wealth produced and consequent employment; the game to be played in its defence is therefore extremely important from every point of view’.