The main Italian organic associations are looking from different perspectives at the acquisition of Suolo e Salute, the big name in organic inspection and certification in Italy, by Cotecna Certification Italia S.r.l., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swiss Cotecna Inspection, which belongs to French manager Frank Piedelièvre.
Exercising caution and prudence in commenting on an operation whose final details have yet to be made known, FederBio, through its president Maria Grazia Mammuccini, observes to GreenPlanet that the fall into foreign hands “is something we would have preferred not to happen”, while AIAB president Giuseppe Romano says he is ‘proud’ of the consideration of Italian organic products by foreign funds and investors who are expressing operations of this kind.
Maria Grazia Mammuccini, president of FederBio: “Certainly the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture has set some limits is a very important fact and we value it positively. Clearly, looking at a growing organic system like the Italian one, seeing the fundamental structures that operate on certification go into foreign hands is something we would have preferred not to see happen”. “You ask me why this happened? – continues the FederBio president – So many types of certification have spread that, compared to structures specialised in organic products such as Suolo e Salute, it has evidently weighed, as has the bureaucratic burden required, and so we give in to partnerships of this type that we cannot define as negative per se. But it is also true that an organic system like ours has always had the characteristic of national certification systems, and losing this cannot be considered positive”.
Giuseppe Romano, president of AIAB: “I speak with the utmost caution, the operation is not yet fully defined. I believe that Italian organic farming is not endangered by these operations. The fact that foreign funds and companies are coming to Italy to invest in our control bodies should make us proud and should make us understand that when we go and massacre control bodies and farms with vexatious regulations such as legislative decree 148, we are holding back the system, we are hurting a system that is considered and evaluated by foreign operators as strategic in which to invest”.
Nicoletta Maffini, president of AssoBio: “It is too early to make an assessment of this acquisition; one thing is certain, it is news that has come unexpectedly”.
The article Acquisizione Suolo e Salute: le reazioni delle Associazioni del biologico italiano appeared first on GreenPlanet.
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