It opened yesterday May 4 at the Expo Center in Rimini, where it will end on the 6th, 39th Macfrut Rimini and was inaugurated with a speech by the Minister of Agriculture Stefano Patuanelli.
The opening of the 39th edition was attended, among others, by the Deputy Director General of FAO Maurizio Martina, the Ministers Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga, Minister for Community Policies of Uganda and Gourouza Magagi Salmou, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship of Niger. And again Roberto Luongo Director General of Ice-Agency, Luca Maestripieri Director of Aics (Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Renzo Piraccini President of Macfrut, with the conclusions entrusted to Alessio Mammi Councilor for Agriculture of the Emilia-Romagna Region.
What challenges for the sector
Stefano Patuanelli Minister of Agricultural Policies at 39th Macfrut Rimini: “Thanks to Macfrut and the exhibition system, the great desire to show the excellence of the Italian agri-food chain, a driving sector for the economy of our country that has never stopped even during the darkest periods of the pandemic “.
Among the challenges of the sector, the many critical issues related to the war in Ukraine. A crisis that is putting the market in difficulty, primarily due to increases in the costs of raw materials and energy. Difficulties that undermine the investment capacity of Italian agricultural entrepreneurs.
Even at this moment, the minister recalled, innovation will be the beacon “that will guide us towards a different agriculture. And the entrepreneur has no opportunity to invest except with regulatory simplification, access to guaranteed credit and the resolution of structural problems in the sector “.
A breath of optimism
Despite the climate of uncertainty and international tensions, 39th Macfrut Rimini https://www.macfrut.com/ opens in the sign of optimism, underlined the president Renzo Piraccini in his speech.
An optimism confirmed by the numbers of the event, which despite being held only 8 months after the previous one, sees a return to normality, with a gross exhibition area of 40,000 square meters with 830 exhibitors of which 28% from abroad.
“But optimism also with regard to the fruit and vegetable sector which closed 2021 with a record figure of 5.5 billion euros in exports (+ 6% on 2020) and a surplus in the trade balance of over one billion euros”.
The optimism also concerns a commercial campaign that is now opening under the best auspices, after two years in which the atmospheric and phytosanitary adversities have caused serious damage in many production areas.
“In recent years, Spain has overtaken Italy from a production and export point of view, but if we consider the entire supply chain – from the seed sector to technical means, from field technologies to packaging lines, from packaging to services – Italy is the absolute leader in Europe. And this is precisely the characteristic we wanted to give to 39th Macfrut Rimini: a representative fair of all the links in the fruit and vegetable supply chain “.