INTERVIEW/ Scordamaglia: “Giansanti at Copa risks being a fig leaf for the interests of global food multinationals”

Brussels – Confagricoltura President Massimiliano Giansanti’s run for the leadership of Copa, the association of European farmers, would go against the interests of the farmers themselves. The harsh attack comes from Luigi Scordamaglia, head of markets, EU, and international policies of Coldiretti and CEO of Filiera Italia, in an exclusive interview with Eunews. Sordamaglia also talks about the new European Commission, which, he says, must guarantee more resources to the sector “to promote the environmental and economic sustainability of European food supply chains” to overcome a senseless juxtaposition between agriculture and the environment.

Eunews: The new European Commission is coming into being as an Italian agribusiness chain. What are you asking for here in Brussels? What are your priorities?

Luigi Scordamaglia: We expect the new Commission to work on all the issues pressing the agri-food sector, starting with the application of the principle of reciprocity in imports from third countries and transparency on labels, with the elimination of the last substantial processing for the origin of food in the customs code. More resources are needed to promote the environmental and economic sustainability of the European food supply chains. We also need must move beyond the crazy phase of pitting agriculture against the environment. It is on these points that we will judge the new EU executive. But our efforts will also focus on defending the Mediterranean Diet because it is under attack.

E.: What are you referring to? Who or what is attacking the Mediterranean Diet?

L.S.: I am referring to the “Mediterranea” association, whose name is deceptive, and I’ll tell you why. The President of Confagricoltura, Massimiliano Giansanti, has led his organization to become an ally in “Mediterranea” with Unionfood, an association chaired by Paolo Barilla, a pasta and snack industrialist, which also represents chemical (such as buyers) and pharmaceutical industries and is supported for a substantial part of its budget by the global multinationals of homologated and synthetic food. Those multinationals represented by Nestlé – proponent of Nutriscore – Unilever – leader in investments in synthetic milk and cheese – Mondelez – recently convicted of over 300 million fine for obstruction of trade in Europe – or Lactalis – convicted in Italy for unfair trade practices toward livestock farmers. While Coldiretti farmers protested in Brussels, these multinationals met with Commission officials to identify strategies to silence protests and pursue a Green Deal to dismantle European agricultural production. The same multinationals are ready to replace our farmers’ healthy and natural ingredients with chemical and synthetic ingredients that form, with huge margins for those who produce them, the basis of those ultra-processed foods that Unionfood multinationals produce.

E.: According to some rumors that emerged in recent days, Giansanti is preparing to submit his candidacy to become Copa President.

 L.S.:  What European farmers’ association would accept the candidacy if it were fully aware of the fig-leaf role that President Giansanti is making its organization assume through its alliance with Unionfood that represents the interests of global food multinationals? In Europe, these multinationals, directly and through their official Food and Drink Europe organization, already heavily influence the legislative activity of the institutions against the interests of European farmers. If now they succeed with a mechanism to influence even an organization like Copa, which is supposed to represent the interests of farmers, then they will close the circle.

E. . And if that happens, how would Coldiretti stand with respect to the new Presidency? 

L.S.: We have never been afraid to fight to protect our farmers and, at the same time, European citizens and consumers. The one against global multinationals for us is the mother of all battles. So, just as we have brought thousands of farmers to demonstrate peacefully in front of European institutions against those regulations that would only benefit the multinationals of standardized and ultra-processed food, in the same way, we will bring them to demonstrate against Copa should it become, through its next President, the covert defender of Big Food’s interests.

E.: However, even in Filiera Italia there are multinationals, one above all McDonald’s. How does this fit with the defense of the Mediterranean Diet and Made in Italy you promote?

L.S.: With McDonald’s, we have promoted a supply chain agreement that allows our farmers to sell products at a remunerative price. Today this multinational uses 85 percent Italian products, which for a significant part is PDO and PGI, three times more than before our agreement. In short, it is one thing to build a shared path to write together the rules for a healthy and fruitful collaboration, which has already led to significant supply chain contracts in the meat, tomato, and cereal sectors; it is another to provide a large fig leaf for multinationals so that they can only do their bidding at the expense of Italian producers and consumers. Since we opposed this, we have been the object of attacks, and we will certainly continue to be so in the future. However, all this will not be enough to stop us because what moves us is, first and foremost, the defense of people’s health and, in this sense, we have entrusted medical research from leading Italian and international universities with the response on the wholesomeness or otherwise of synthetic foods.

E.: You harshly criticize Mediterranea’s work and Giansanti’s positions, but the President recently said that multinational food companies create jobs in Italy.

L.S.:Of course, too bad that Giansanti missed the article published in that same newspaper announcing massive cuts at Unilever, one of their “Mediterranean” multinationals, where there was talk of 3,200 fewer jobs. By now, we know that SMEs and industries that consolidate the supply chain create jobs in Italy. The others run away with the loot. And let’s not talk about the effects on consumer health and the wild promotion of ultra-processed foods.

E.: What are you referring to when you speak about “wild promotion”?

L.S.: In the past few days, a Position Paper made with the contribution, among others, of Unionfood, Federchimica, and Barilla, coordinated by Emanuele Marconi, director of Crea’s food and nutrition research center, whose function would be to defend the Mediterranean diet not weaken it, caused a stir in Italy, proposing to delete the term “ultra-processed” that, in its negative meaning, would harm those who produce these kinds of products and would even question research that associates the consumption of such foods with a rise in increasingly widespread metabolic diseases, mortality, and childhood obesity, scientific evidence that is now well known.