Italian tomato producers express concern over imports from China
26 September 2010
According to press reports, Italian tomato producers are fearful that ‘growing imports of Chinese tomatoes in Italy are making it impossible for local producers to maintain quality and could lead to the disappearance of the Italian tomato.’ This is attributed to the 2008 decoupling of farm support from the production of specific commodities. As a consequence of this policy shift, Italian tomato farmers can now freely choose which crops to produce, without any fear of losing formerly ‘product-specific’ subsidy payments. In the market context created by imports of tomatoes from China, this could lead to Italian tomato farmers ‘switching to more lucrative crops’.
According to the reports, the EU is not only ‘the world’s largest producer’ of tomatoes, but also the ‘biggest importer, with 100 million kilos of tomato paste having come from China over the past year.’ The consequent oversupply reportedly ‘caused the price per tonne set by cooperatives to be reduced from €72 to just €35.’
Italy’s Agriculture Minister Giancarlo Galen has stressed that the country ‘has a duty to defend’ the tomato production sector. On 30 August, the Minister convened a tomato sector stakeholders’ meeting during which tomato processors agreed to ‘honour contracts relative to price and volumes negotiated’ and to work towards a new agreement between processors and producers taking into account the changed conditions of the sector, including the realities generated by the ending of EU coupled payments in the tomato sector.
EC representatives have stressed that the concerns of Italian tomato producers are ‘not a generalised problem around the EU’ and concern ‘only Italy’.
Italian tomato producers argue that ‘Chinese producers can use pesticides to make their production cheaper, and are not subject to the same controls’ as Italian producers. In certain areas of Italy the introduction of a ‘Denomination of Controlled Origin labelling’ scheme is seen as one means of circumventing price competition from Chinese tomato paste exporters.
Editorial comment
The potential politicisation of this issue may see an Italian government application to the EC for approval of a national aid programme to Italian tomato producers. This could take a variety of forms, including financial support for the introduction of geographical indications or other similar quality labelling schemes. These types of initiative could also receive support under the EU ‘support to producer organisations’ scheme, which is specific to the fruit and vegetable sector. However, this would be up to the individual producer organisation, which has the right to determine how it deploys allocated funds across the various types of activity that can be financed under the scheme within the framework of common EU rules.
Current Italian tomato-producer concerns could also see a stepping up of food-safety inspections at Italian ports, since inspection remains a national responsibility under EU food-safety legislation.
The accusation that Chinese tomato paste has been relabelled as ‘made in Italy’ has parallels with earlier concerns which arose in ACP countries over the use of bulk imports of Chinese tomato paste to sustain the off-season operation of Italian tomato-paste canning facilities. Much of this ‘Italian’ tomato paste has been exported to ACP markets, undermining local tomato-processing activities in ACP countries (particularly in West Africa). This use of imported Chinese tomato paste has long been a source of concern to ACP tomato producers in countries targeted for export by Italian companies. With the conclusion of EPA agreements granting tariff preferences to products originating in the EU, such a practice could constitute a serious violation of the rules of origin. The extent to which tomato paste of Chinese origin is ending up in ‘Italian’ tomato-paste exports, which benefit from tariff preferences under the EPAs, is currently unclear However, this issue does raise the wider question of verification of the origin of raw materials used in products destined for ACP markets, exported with the benefit of tariff preferences negotiated under an EPA. Currently tomato concentrate is being considered by the ECOWAS/UEMOA Joint Committee for classification in the fifth band of the CET, with a tariff rate of 35%.
