An out of control presence
Ungulates eat up agriculture and contribute to the abandonment of fertile land, the closure of farms and the loss of jobs. The out-of-control presence of thousands of wild boar, roe deer, fallow deer in Toscana reduces the farmers' ability to produce food by removing the objective of food sovereignty, threatens the biodiversity of the countryside and woods and represents a danger to the survival of many of the products in the Made in Tuscany basket and of the agri-food specialties in extinction which are often linked to hamlets and small communities. This was denounced by Coldiretti Toscana on the occasion of the "Guardians of Biodiversity" event promoted together with AB-Agrivenatoria Biodiversitalia in Florence and aimed at wildlife hunting companies. Over 300 those present in Tuscany. “The pandemic with the impossibility of hunting for long periods and then drought and climate change have worsened an already emergency situation by pushing the packs more and more towards urban centers in search of food and water. – explains Fabrizio Filippi, President of Coldiretti Toscana – In this context, the function of wildlife companies becomes strategic to protect the biodiversity of the territories, creating at the same time opportunities for development and income within the supply chains and helping to control the uncontrolled expansion of fauna wild that causes so much damage to the environment and to man. Without forgetting that the environmental balance of vast territorial ecosystems in areas of naturalistic value is also at risk with the loss of both animal and vegetable biodiversity”.
The extent of the damages
In ten years, the damage to crops reported by farmers has reached 20 million euros (almost 1,7 million in 2021 alone). 80% are attributable to wild boars whose population, according to an estimate by Coldiretti Toscana, has exceeded 300 specimens. There are so many crops damaged by wild boars that Coldiretti Toscana has drawn up a real regional hit parade presented on the sidelines of the event of the Guardians of Biodiversity. In the first places there are grapes, fields of corn and cereals, both in the sowing and ripening phases, field beans and medical herbs used for cattle breeding. Then lentils and legumes, spelled and barley, chestnuts and open field vegetables to finish with the plants of the forest and the cultivation of sunflowers. The ungulates enter the vineyards to feast on the grapes of the winemakers with whom they make wine, destroy the corn and grain fields for the production of flour, devastate the land sown with legumes, spelt, sunflower and cultivated vegetables to end up on the tables of consumers, root in the meadows where the farmers produce hay for the livestock and burn the buds of trees and plants, compromising the regrowth of the forest heritage. But they are also a calamity for the fragile economies of the forest such as that of the chestnut growers forced to contend with the wild boars for the chestnuts for the production of the precious flours used in the preparation of many recipes of the typical traditional cuisine. Farmers cultivate, ungulates harvest. And so the companies disappear: one in three in the last ten years and with them the presence in the area, the supervision and protection of the landscape and biodiversity.
Accidents and more
Today ungulates are no longer just a calamity for agriculture but a problem that closely affects the whole community. The episodes of specimens of wild boar in playgrounds or walking around in towns is now the order of the day as well as unfortunately road accidents. Two sad records of Tuscany with regard to safety: the number of deaths (3 in 2021) and road accidents (20 in 2021) according to Asaps. In Tuscany, at the request of the regional federation, law 310/2016 was amended by the Tuscany Region to allow farmers-hunters to intervene directly against ungulates to protect their crops, after having reported their presence in their land. Now the national government is also moving. “Compensation, which never repays the true value of damaged and lost productions, cannot continue to be the solution. What we are asking for - concludes the president of Coldiretti, Fabrizio Filippi - is a very urgent decree law to amend article 19 of Law 157 of 1992 which allows for the extension of the control plans coordinated by the Regions and thus arrive at a drastic containment to contain a phenomenon that no longer concerns only farmers but the whole community. To bring the density of fauna back to sustainable levels, containment policies are needed to be implemented by any means". (Source COLDIRETTI TUSCANY)