"Today we need to have a greater impact and with greater funding to support this strategic sector. We have highlighted, as Italy, the need to enhance it also in consideration of a broader development of the attractiveness of agriculture in internal areas, which must include a series of interventions not only on the agricultural level but also on services, as well as income". Thus the italian Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry Francesco Lollobrigida , speaking at Agrifish in Brussels.

The minister addressed the issue of cultivated foods, highlighting that Italy's position could be common with France and Austria. "I thank Norbert Totschnig , Austrian minister, for convening a meeting in which he asked me and the French minister Marc Fesneau to share a common document to be presented on synthetic meat", declared Lollobrigida , specifying: "We intend to protect the food, the quality of food, our production and the environment, which is intimately connected with the centrality of agriculture and its development. Those who have said for a long time that agriculture is the enemy of the environment have simply said something false."

"The solution to the reduction of agrochemicals and pesticides must be in line with the possibility of continuing to produce", underlined the minister. "We agree on the reduction of pesticides, but we do not agree on the reduction of production because, for the same consumption, in that case we will be forced to buy products from nations that use quantities of pesticides much higher than those that currently they use our farmers. We reiterate Italy's position, which asks for an overall reflection", concluded Lollobrigida .