Agriculture is the only sector to record a negative result with a decrease of 1.1% compared to the previous quarter and 0.7% compared to the previous year. The result – underlines Coldiretti – is that over 1/3 of farms (34%) are now forced to work in a condition of negative income while more than 1 farm out of 10 (13%) is in a situation so critical that it leads to the cessation of business.
In contrast to the general trend, therefore, the added value drops only for agriculture and fishing due to drought and the explosion of production costs, from energy to fertilizers, from machines to packaging up to feed to feed the livestock. This was stated by Coldiretti in reference to the trend in GDP in the quarterly income statements of Istat for the second quarter of 2022 which generally show an increase of 1.1% for the entire economy compared to the previous quarter and of 4.7% compared to the same period of the previous year.
In agriculture there are in fact increases in costs ranging from + 170% of fertilizers to + 90% of feeds to + 129% for diesel up to + 300% of bills for pumping water for irrigation of crops. The rise in energy prices – continues Coldiretti – then affects production costs such as that for packaging, from plastic for flower pots to steel for jars, from glass for jars to wood for transport pallets. and paper for product labels that affect different supply chains, from milk packs, to bottles for oil, juices and purees, to nets for citrus fruits to enameled jars for legumes.
“There is no time to waste and it is necessary to intervene immediately on energy price increases that jeopardize those spaces of autonomy and food sovereignty that up to now Italian agricultural companies have managed to defend for the good of the country and with them the supply of households that already have to face unsustainable price increases ”affirms the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini.