Hunting: Piedmont, the Region presented the first Game Processing Center as part of a project for the promotion and enhancement of faunal-territorial resources.
The structure represents a pilot project and the first example of how an overall management of the hunting activity, from the first to the last phase of the supply chain, can contribute to the reduction of excess wildlife, generate repercussions in terms of reduction of the expense for compensation. and incentives for an economic and employment sector. The press conference for the presentation of the first "Game Processing Center" in Piedmont was held this morning at the AtcTo3 headquarters in Piossasco. The activity, located in the municipality of Piscina at the structure of the Idealcarni Company, has made it possible to start a project for the promotion and enhancement of wildlife-territorial resources in the TO3 Hunting Territorial Area for the creation of the first supply, processing and marketing chain. of game meat under the supervision of the Veterinary Hygiene Service. The Center will provide for the collection, control, transformation and sale of the animals killed by hunting, including in the processing animals taken both during ordinary hunting trips and following specific wildlife control activities aimed at limiting damage to crops. For the first time in Piedmont, therefore, the entire path of the meat supply chain from wildlife is completed.
The realization of the project was achieved thanks to an activity of coordination and mutual support between the Territorial Area of Caccia Torino 3, the Italian Farmers Confederation of Turin, the IDEALCARNI Company of Piscina (To), and the involvement of the Regional Councilor to Agriculture and Forests, Hunting and Fishing Claudio SACCHETTO, the Regional Councilor for Parks and Protected Areas Gianluca VIGNALE, the Director of the Veterinary Hygiene Service of Food Production of the ASL TO3 dott. Francesco GIACOMINO.
The initiative is part of an organic and modern vision of hunting, far from prejudicial positions on the one hand, open to harmonizing the different functions attributable to hunting on the other: hunting is an instrument of sampling and control, potential antidote to damage to crops caused by wildlife, a means for protecting and conserving the environment, a vehicle for centuries-old traditions and values and, finally, a potential resource for developing a supply chain capable of enlivening a specific channel of the local economy that has as a central product game meat of excellent quality and recognized genuineness.
This experience will make it possible to organize and effectively manage the use of game following collection, with the possibility of guaranteeing maximum transparency and traceability of the product in favor of the consumer. Through this innovative opportunity, an enhancement of wildlife is undoubtedly promoted: the ATC To3, through the sale of the markings provided for by regional legislation to hunters (the hunter is expected to purchase the band corresponding to the venable garment before the hunting session) these resources to compensate for damage to agricultural crops. The potential results in economic and employment terms should not be underestimated, including restaurateurs, agritourisms and canteens as users of a guaranteed and traced supply chain.
The Regional Councilor for Agriculture and Forests, Hunting and Fishing Claudio Sacchetto: "The project for a game processing center allows us to tackle an aspect of hunting in a new and, in my opinion, extremely positive way, namely the fate of the garments removed. With this initiative, the concept of fauna understood as a public good, of all is brought to the fore: administering the hunting exercise does not only mean regulating the sampling, but broadening the horizons and providing a destination, an address for the culled animals which, in addition to interesting closely the hunter, translates into an impulse to a supply chain that up to now, despite its potential, has not been able to create a consolidated supply channel.
It is also and above all through a modern, flexible and structured management of the hunting exercise - all of its phases - that effective results can also be obtained in terms of reducing the damage to agricultural crops caused by the proliferation of wildlife ". The Regional Councilor for Parks and Protected Areas, Gian Luca Vignale: "The project involves the processing, and then sale, of meat from animals that are slaughtered in the annual selection plans and in compliance with the balance that must be achieved between humans and wildlife. Thanks to this initiative, it will be possible to create a short meat chain that will guarantee tangible benefits not only for selective control within protected areas, but also for the Park Authority and for the local economy ”.
"The commitment of ATC TO3 is good - comments the Regional Vice-President of the Italian Farmers Confederation Lodovico Actis Perinetto - for the start of the first experience in the supply chain for the marketing of wildlife in Piedmont, following the example of practices that already exist and are consolidated in numerous Italian regions. The challenge obviously must be not to bend the hunting activity for profit but to work together, farmers and hunters, to act as a defense of the territory and correct the imbalances that are created when a single species takes over the others ".
Roberto Barbero, Provincial President of the Italian Farmers Confederation of Turin, declares: “For farmers, the damage caused by wildlife is now an endemic problem. We trust that the possibility of marketing game meat resulting from the killing and containment activities planned, as well as offering greater safety to the consumer on the quality and freshness of the final product, represents an innovative way to make the presence of these animals on the territory sustainable and to ensure rapid compensation for the damage suffered to the farms affected ”.
17 January 2014
Source: AgenParl