Page 201 - Supplemento 2-2016 (ENG)

Tackling Environmental Crime throUgh standardized Methodologies

Offenses in agribusiness matters: reform perspectives

Gian Carlo Caselli
President of the Scientific Committee of the Observatory on Agriculture and
Agrifood system criminality

Good morning to all of you. I must start with an apology for two reasons:
firstly, I will speak Italian; secondly I’m not making use of slides in my speech.
I’m aware this is a limitation, perhaps even an anomaly but, please, bear with
me and accept my apologies. I also wish to apologise for the fact that in a con-
ference on the environment, I’m going to talk to you about something only
apparently different: crimes in the sector of the food farming business and the
prospects for a reform. The difference is only apparent as food is actually the
main link between humankind and environment, with regard to use of land, of
water, of natural resources and of waste disposal. Food and environment are,
as a consequence, strictly connected and for this reason food is to be conside-
red and treated as common good.

Despite of the strong pressure to conceive food simply as merchandise,
pressure which, for the common interest of consumers, good producers, and
quality, should be opposed in order to safeguard its quality, its main characteri-
stics and food safety. In addition we should impede that such features may be
neglected in favour of a reasoning which may result mostly, if not totally, driven
by interest in quantity and profits, away from any ethical principle. Such results
can be achieved by strengthening or increasing the sense of legality also in the
food farming industry. Legality – obviously I’m not referring to the experts in
the field but to the external world, to the “attitude” common in the general
public- is too often seen as a sort of nuisance ( what a bore! All these rules! All
these strings and constraints! It would be so nice to live in total peace and free-
dom without being forced to follow this rule or the other!)

Alternatively, legality is considered as a problem exclusively linked to cri-
minals and police enforcement: in other words, to refer to our own domestic
system, Carabinieri, State Forestry Department and Magistrates on the one side
and criminals on the other. And all of us, the citizens simply look.

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