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Italy’s Upper House Senate ‘green-lighted’ draft law 1048 on ornamental horticulture on 27 June 2024. This landmark bill aims to recognise the nation’s technically advanced subsector of agriculture, put its flower and plant industry firmly on the map, and overcome regulatory issues, writes Arturo Croci for FCI.
The announcement may put a smile on your faces, my readers. For those unaware of the bureaucracy and lengthy proceedings surrounding Italian law, the news may be merely perceived as an Italian dream that is finally coming true after 50 long years.
Yet, do not smile too broadly. Despite the sector’s pivotal role in environmental conservation, significant economic impact, and positive effect on mental health and well-being, support for ornamental horticulture among politicians and policymakers in Italy and the rest of Europe is rather dismal.
Perhaps the sole exception is the Netherlands, where the commercial production and trade of ornamentals continue to carry political weight, albeit being far less influential than in the past.
The news that Italian ornamental horticulture will finally be embedded in Italian law reminded me of the late Dr Marc Cathey, a research horticulturist who became managing director of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland, in the mid-1950s.
When visiting the Bloemenvaktentoonstelling Aalsmeer in the 1990s, Cathey argued that ornamental horticulture’s place within global agriculture was way too small. He therefore advocated a name change to ‘Ornamental Industry’ with a byline highlighting the sector’s economic, environmental, societal, and health benefits. Only then, Cathey believed, would the sector gain sufficient political and economic weight worldwide.
Ornamental horticulture has been steeped in Italian tradition since the days of the Roman Emperors. Much later, in the late 19th Century, the French Riviera, back then still Italian territory, emerged as the cradle of the international flower trade, with cities as Nice sending their precious blooms to as far afield as the mauve boudoir of the last Russian empress Alexandra Fjodorovna.
Per capita consumption of flowers and plants in Italy has progressively decreased.
Notwithstanding, in industrial policy, the Italian government has always considered floriculture as something marginal.
Today, Italy derives most of its benefits from importing raw (starting) materials and exporting finished plants. Often overlooked is the huge difference between in and output in the country’s ornamentals sector, resulting from the hard and dedicated work of the tens of thousands of green professionals and a benign climate that allows the growth of a unique range of flowers and plants.
Within the EU Bloc, the Italians and Spanish hold the best cards to become Europe’s ‘major flower and plant producers, while the Dutch will continue to play their primary role in floral trade and logistics.
Back to horticulture and politics. Many Italian industry professionals and industry bodies deserve credit for ‘having paved the way’ towards the draft law for ornamental horticulture.
In 1984, for example, one of the offsprings of the inaugural Florum conference – held in Bordighera at the time – was Unaflor, the National Union of Floriculture Associations.
Despite its troubled and short life, Unaflor was the first to obtain recognition from the Ministry of Agriculture as ‘a technologically advanced sector dealing with the production of flowers and ornamental plants’.
Unaflor president Franco Locatelli made the next big step in the mid-1980s. He drafted a law on floriculture and sent it to the Minister of Agriculture, Filippo Maria Pandolfi. Sadly, his proposal remained in the ministerial drawers until Moreno Bambi updated and resubmitted a revised draft to the Minister.
During the 2006 Florum conference held in Mantova, the three trade unions Coldiretti, Confagricoltura and Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori presented agriculture minister Gianni Alemanno a jointly signed request to set up a floricultural network annexe meeting point and learning centre for the many regional floricultural hubs. The Minister accepted and set up this industry body, appointing Teresio Delfino to run it, but without results.
In the early 1990s, Alberto Manzo arrived at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Manzo breathed new life into horticultural policymaking. The young technician had a degree in agriculture from the University of Portici and was well aware of how things in Italian floriculture really are because his father, also an agronomist, was originally from Campania, Italy’s hotbed for cut flower production.
Alberto Manzo.
Manzo disliked sitting behind a desk and began visiting different Italian regions to learn about the size and production of floricultural companies.
In 2006, he organised a Floricultural Round Table, serving as the sector’s unified voice. In meeting with green professionals and their trade body reps, he soon learned about the necessity of R&D, sector promotion, and statistics.
‘Grazie dei Fiori’, a TV programme dedicated to the sector, began airing on the public network RAI2 every Wednesday morning. Despite its unfortunate scheduling, it was hailed a success. Farmers’ Research Centre ISMEA launched a project to improve transport logistics and statistical sector data.
Manzo and the sector’s stakeholders kept the debate on floriculture going, and a 2014-2016 strategic plan was developed for the floricultural sector. The momentum was unique because, at last, the sector presented its clear vision as well as shared guidelines and priorities.
Unfortunately, the chronic lack of public funds to promote ad hoc notices did not lead to the realisation of what was written in the Plan. Then, in 2020, Covid-19 struck, and we all know how it wreaked havoc on the sector in its early days.
Dr Manzo took up a new role but continued to collaborate and support Senator La Pietra, undersecretary of agriculture, in drafting the ‘principles and guiding criteria’, the building blocks of the draft law on floriculture. If I am not mistaken, the latter have reached their 14th or 15th version now.
After getting the green light from the Chamber of Deputies last February, the bill was presented to the Senate Chamber by Senator Anna Maria Fallucchi on 27 June 2024, updated, completed and finally brought to approval by Senator Patrizio La Pietra, to whom the sector owes a big thank you.
Within the EU Bloc, the Italians and Spanish hold the best cards to become Europe’s ‘major flower and plant producers.
Law No. 102, dated 4 July 2024 on the ‘Delegation to the Government in the field of floriculture’, was published in GURI No. 164 on 15 July. Article one stipulates that the government shall adopt one or more legislative decrees within 24 months from the date of entry into force of the law (30 July 2024) to reorganise the legislation relating to the sector.
Article two deals with regulating the floricultural profession and lists the main criteria to be taken into account by the government, defining the activity and its specialisations, providing for a national set of guidelines, preparing a national sector plan, providing for a data collection system, set up logistic platforms and macro-areas to increase energy efficiency, the creation of a single, distinctive production brand, quality standards for garden centres and floriculture centres, define the figures operating in the floriculture sector, define the criteria for the production of plant material in the industry, including horticulture, fruit and forestry, etc. etc. without further burdens on public finance.
Article three discusses the procedures required for the adoption of legislative decrees.
Article four focuses on the burdens deriving from the establishment of a sector office within the Italian Ministry of Agriculture.
Finally, Article five provides legislative safeguards for special statute regions and autonomous provinces.
The economic crisis of the past few years caused by the pandemic, the ongoing wars and the energy crisis have negatively affected the fabric and economic performance of Italy’s floricultural sector.
In central and northern Italy, a sizeable number of well-organised companies have ceased operations. The overall number of companies has gradually decreased, mainly due to the cessation of activity of older, obsolete companies as the new generations have moved into more profitable sectors.
Per capita consumption of flowers and plants has progressively decreased, but export sales continue to bloom because certain products are only available in Italy.
Now that ‘the dream’ of a national floriculture law has come true:
1) The office that should be dedicated to floriculture is still empty within the walls of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry.
2) It is unknown who and when all the implementing legislative decrees will be drafted.
3) The person or persons who should write the decrees should do so in agreement with and according to the indications of a Technical Table of the Floriculture Sector, which expired in December 2015 (established by Ministerial Decree 18353 of 14 December 2012). See this link (in Italian only): https://www.politicheagricole.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/3268?YY=2012
At the time of writing (November 2024), Undersecretary La Pietra convened a ‘preparatory meeting for establishing a ‘floriculture sector round table’. He later proposed a global decree. So far, the sector’s stakeholders haven’t been invited to discuss and verify it.
When, in the 1980s, with Franco Locatelli and Valter Pironi, we took the first draft of the floriculture plan to Minister Pandolfi, I asked the Minister:
I renewed my request to those who came.
Left to right: Alberto Manzo, Mario Faro, and Leonardo Capitanio.
I hope they will call back Dr Manzo without further ado and in time before he retires. Dr Manzo will not do miracles, but at least he will try.
After studying floriculture and philosophy, Arturo Croci devoted himself to publishing and editing the well-respected horticultural media outlet Flortecnica for 40 years. Arturo has been a contributing writer to Floriculture International for many, many years.
He was president of the Communautè Européenne des Jeunes de l’Horticulture (CEJH), the youth organisation founded and initiated by AIPH.
He served as President of the European Horticultural Press Association HME (HortiMedia Europe) and president of the International Euroflora jury. He is also recognised for being a co-founder of GFA Giovani Florovivaisti Associati, Festa dei Nonni and Orticolario.
For his merits in the promotion and training in floriculture, he received the Special Award of the President of the Italian Republic; he was awarded the Silver Carnation, and in 2009, the city of Marsala (Sicily) declared him ‘Cittadino Benemerito di Marsala’ (honorary citizen.
As a writer, he has written many technical books, short stories, and poems.
Arturo Croci.
