We're being flooded with Tunisian olive oil, which has quadrupled in just a few months. And Italian producers have warehouses full of unsold extra virgin olive oil.

An exemplary story of how we're hurting ourselves, bringing a strategic sector of the national economy to its knees. And how we're failing to defend our interests in Europe. The competition game is a losing battle: Tunisian oil costs 2 euros, Italian oil 7 euros.

di |
Tunisian oil for sale in Italy

Tunisian Olive Oil for Sale in Italy

If you want to get an idea of ​​how we are capable of harming ourselves, bringing an entire agricultural and industrial chain to its knees, undergoing a strange and unsustainable competition, try to follow the scandal ofTunisian oil which is invading Italy. Since the beginning of the year, significant volumes have quadrupled and travel on an average of over 7 thousand tons per monthNot only that. Under a series of agreements reached within the European Union with Tunisia, there are still large margins of oil that Tunisians can easily sell on our markets, recovering quotas they have not yet fully exploited.

OLIVE OIL CONSUMPTION IN ITALY

The numbers are these: historically Italians consume between 600 and 700 thousand tons of olive oil per year, and the producing companies, often very small, export between 300 and 400 tons. We need something like a million tons of olive oil, while we can produce, on average, no more than 430. In bad seasons, when the plants are affected by some virus and production is low, the import share increases between 40 and 70 percent. And the most affected regions seem to be the Calabria, the Sicilia, the Sardinia Abruzzo, Brands , Campania.

Tunisian olive oil in Italy

Conclusion: two out of three bottles that end up on Italian tables contain Tunisian, Spanish and Greek oilAn absurd waste of wealth, well-being, and work. A deadly blow to our agriculture, on which, among other things, many of our young people are courageously betting. Consumers in particular are severely damaged, as on the label of Tunisian oil, it's enough to write "mixture of EU and non-EU oil”, obviously in lowercase letters. So that no one will understand that they're using Tunisian oil when they think they're buying a typically Made in Italy product.

TO KNOW MORE: How to correctly read and interpret oil labels

IMPORTING TUNISIAN OIL INTO ITALY

The importation of Tunisian oil, without the duties which are very fashionable today and which in this case have even been eliminated, has been favoured, always at the level of European Union, for geopolitical reasons. In essence, the aim was to lend concrete support to a country heavily affected by Islamic terrorism and also strategic for our security. An understandable choice, but one that cannot be definitively detrimental to Italian agriculture and oil production.

ITALIAN OLIVE OIL FRAUD

The damage to the Italian system, as Coldiretti rightly protested, they are hugeWhile we quadruple Tunisian oil imports, Italian growers' warehouses are full of extra virgin olive oil made in Italy. unsold. Not only that. Competition doesn't exist: our oil, of great quality and effectiveness for consumer health, has high production costs, incomparable to those of Tunisian farmers. Tunisian oil, in fact, thanks to poorly paid labor and the lack of a series of health guarantees and controls both on the product and on the workers, who are paid illegally and without social security coverage, costs about 2 euros per liter. Italian oil costs 7 euros per liter. And so the game is lost from the start. Furthermore, this gap opens a new window for the forgery which has already surpassed, in the agri-food sector alone, the 60 billion euros a year, costing Italy something like 300 thousand jobs.

ALSO READ: How to recognize a good extra virgin olive oil and avoid buying a poor-quality one

TUNISIAN OIL PROBLEM

The argument used by supporters of openness—that is, the attempt to help the Tunisian economy after the collapse of tourism due to ISIS attacks—is coincidentally supported by Northern European countries, led by Germany, which have little interest in oil production, which, instead, is an asset in the hands of Southern European countries, including Italy. Let's remember that we are the world's second-largest oil producer, after Spain. To help Tunisia, we should open our doors to appliances that they produce at low cost and low quality in competition with products made in Germany? The European Parliament's decision must be opposed at all levels. First of all, in Europe, where our representatives, who unfortunately seem to count for less than zero, would do well to make their voices heard.

ALTERNATIVE USES AND NATURAL REMEDIES BASED ON EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL:

 

 

Want to see a selection of our news?

Don't Waste