Agromafie. 1st Report on Agro-food Crimes (2011)

Presented by Eurispes and Coldiretti, the 1st Report on agri-food crimes in Italy tackles for the first time the phenomenon of organised crime, which operates in the agri-food sector, creating a real parallel business, and ends up arriving on the tables of Italians by increasing prices and reducing the quality of the products purchased by consumers, while at the same time damaging companies committed to guaranteeing the high standards of Made in Italy food products. The reinvestment of illicit income also in the agri-food sector, has as a corollary the conditioning of free economic initiative through fraudulent activities such as the undue receipt of national and EU funding, but also the implementation of extortionate practices, imposing the hiring of labour and, in some cases, forcing the operators in the sector to purchase the means of production from persons close to criminal organisations, then influencing the selling prices.  The results obtained by the Police Forces show how the entire agri-food sector is characterised by criminal phenomena linked to smuggling, counterfeiting and adulteration of food and agricultural products and their guaranteed brands, but also by the phenomenon of ‘caporalato’, which involves the exploitation of illegal farm labourers, resulting in tax and social security evasion.

The idea, the project and the commitment proposed by Coldiretti to fight this kind of situation is the creation of an agricultural supply chain, Italian and signed. In this way, the pact of trust that you are sure to build with consumers would be able to bring Italian agriculture back to a leading place in the economic landscape and within the chain, with noticeable positive economic and image effects, not only for agriculture itself but for all operators involved or interested in the agri-food chain.

The 1st Report on agri-food crimes in Italy was made possible thanks to the scientific contribution of Coldiretti, Ismea, the Carabinieri, the Guardia di Finanza, the State Forestry Corps, the National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office and the Customs Agency. Special thanks for their valuable contribution to the research are due to: Raffaele Guariniello, Gennaro Marasca, Vincenzo Macrì, Antonio D’Amato, Giovanni Conzo. Eurispes would also like to thank: the Transfrontier Inspection Posts, the Maritime, Air and Border Health Offices, the Uvacs, the ASLs (inspection activities), Arpa, the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institutes, the Central Inspectorate for the protection of quality and fraud repression of agri-food products, Olaf.