Italy set to be first-ever country to ban synthetic food

Italy will ban synthetic food, Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida told an event organised by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and attended by EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski over the weekend, making it the first country in the world to do so.

On Monday, a bill that would ban the production, import and marketing of food produced in laboratories is due to be debated in parliament’s lower house.

Organised by ECR in Kilkenny, Ireland, the event entitled “Traditions and Innovation: A Conservative Future for European Farmers” had leading conservative politicians discuss the challenges and opportunities arising from European regulation and collaboration on animal husbandry, agriculture and the green economy. Lollobrigida and Wojciechowski attended remotely.

“Italy will be the first nation free of synthetic food and wants to set an example on how it can be regulated”, Lollobrigida (Fratelli d’Italia/ECR), who dialled in from a distance at the ECR event held in Kilkenny, Ireland, said.

“We have chosen the precautionary principle […] Food quality is fundamental and we cannot agree to a society divided in two, with quality food produced only for a rich elite. We are convinced that everyone should be able to eat well”, the minister added.

Lollobrigida’s position was largely shared by the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski (PiS/ECR), who spoke during the ECR event in an open dialogue with the Italian minister.

“As Commissioner, I am in favour of traditional agriculture, I protect natural products very strongly. The labelling system is not up to me, but I try to protect tradition”, explained Wojciechowski.

“Synthetic meat is not meat, synthetic milk is not milk. I defend the natural product, and to use the name of the natural product for the synthetic one, in my opinion, is not a step in the right direction”, he added, pointing out that the EU Commission allocates more than €6 billion to support animal welfare and, more generally, to traditional farming.

However, the agriculture model proposed by the Conservatives is in open contrast to the one adopted by the EU, which, according to Fratelli d’Italia, is too bureaucratic and incapable of tackling the new challenges straining the continent.

“Farmers, breeders and fishermen risk paying a very high price for the ideological follies behind the European Union’s Green Deal, which penalises producers with emissions reduction targets that will only lead to less food production”, explained MEP Carlo Fidanza, leader of Fratelli d’Italia’s delegation to the European Parliament.

“Less food production will only be replaced in the medium term with more imports from countries that do not meet our sustainability and quality standards or with laboratory products about which we have no certainty”, he added.

To overturn the system, the ECR group must do well in the EU elections in June 2024 and find allies to form an alternative majority to the left in the European Parliament.

“After the next elections, we count on having an increasingly strong ECR in Brussels”, Fidanza added.

(Federica Pascale | Euractiv.it)

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