European Regions facing the global market

Intervention by Carlo Hausmann

The agro food world market is characterized by a progressive trade integration. The global market progress consents to economize, it offers a widening range of food productions, and major continuity in supplies, yet it appears to be unstoppable, and sometimes irreversible, and dangerous.

The capacity of facing such dangers “as a team” together with our different territories is essential: globalisation bases on a progressive trade deregulation, that does not correspond to a precise management strategy. On the contrary, our citizens-consumers contemporarily take advantage and suffer from this process without being able to influence the market evolution: the scarce individual incisiveness becomes but decisive on the collective level (market reactions following today great food fears – BSE, chicken flu). Global emotional phenomenon teach the importance for the attentive consumer of relying on compact, organised, granted, and believable local production systems.

We trouble ourselves chasing food regulation in order to grant the consumer’s health, while it would be enough to pay one simple attention: not to deviate, but to invest on control systems to avoid damages. However, the damage caused in these cases is terribly superior to any economic benefit, often enjoyed only by a few people: how much was it possible to save using meat flours for feeding the oxen or cutting the costs of veterinary services against the social damage, the sanitary expenses, and the pulling down of big part of the bovine zoo technical property in Great Britain?

Such mistakes cannot be repeated. All of us are aiming at finding out local development solutions able to coexist harmoniously and to integrate in order to carry out the big European food supply.

Europe has an unbelievable property of cultures, styles of life, knowledge, traditions characterizing each of our regions. Food products are an important piece of this culture, result of a history and of an intellectual and manual ability which cannot be underestimated. Indeed, it is sufficient to look on supermarket shelves to notice the proliferation of food products, named and dressed as one out of thousands of our recipes, but too often made with non original raw materials or using unknown techniques. These products use, the more and more, images, forms, and colours or typical territorial elements taking, therefore, automatic possession of the great attraction power of the territory.

In front of such a situation, our goal becomes the promotion of authentic products, and the preservation of the true cultural identity value.

The consumers request a major assurance level on food products traceability, and on their cultivation and transformation techniques. On the basis of the European Commission orientations, there are a great deal of initiatives addressed to guarantee the quality in the agro food sector. The BSE case quickened their rising and diffusion all over the nation, and so did the need to fulfil new law obligations introduced as guarantee of food products traceability.

Traceability is a necessary instrument, compulsory or voluntary, in order to manage food safety. It is universally considered as basis of alimentary quality development and basic requirement for the consumer’s protection as it includes in its meaning the functional connection of the different links client/supplier of the food chain through recording, controlling and knowing of data related to the flows (quantity, quality and time).

In this scenery, the role of European regions is decisive: it’s a sector policy role; an institutional role as arbiter between different and sometimes conflicting boosts; a promotional role of a food range, but also of a real alimentary culture; a role in which the consumer’s protection is preeminent. It is up to the local administrations to work together with the companies in order to guarantee a good level of truthfulness and transparency of information.