The Italian “Agri-food Protection” bill is law. The Chamber of Deputies has in fact approved the text of the law at second reading which should aim to guarantee more transparency and safety for food products purchased by Italians. But why are we talking about the crime of agropiracy? Let’s clarify.
The provision which has just become law is made up of 21 articles, with various amendments to the penal code, and introduces new criminal cases, including food fraud, trade in food with false signs and establishes a control room for controls at the Ministry of Agriculture.
The bill, in essence, will have the aim of tightening the sanctioning treatment for the crime of counterfeiting geographical indications or designations of origin of agri-food products, introducing the crime of trading in food with false or misleading signs (distinctive signs or false or misleading indications). And agropiracy?
Agropiracy: let’s clarify things straight away
There has been a lot of talk about the “new crime of agropiracy”. The point is that the bill approved by the Government – also celebrated by the minister Francesco Lollobrigida as a historic result – does not introduce the crime of agro-piracy, but inserts it as an aggravating factor in agri-food crimes.
It may seem like a difference to insiders, but it isn’t: it changes the way in which these behaviors are punished and recognized by the law.
So what is agropiracy?
This is the “industrial” version of food fraud. The term, coined years ago by Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, indicates all those organized and systematic activities that imitate or falsify agri-food products, often exploiting the name and reputation of Made in Italy. It is therefore not a matter of a single case of incorrect labeling or an occasional prank, but of structured systems built to deceive consumers on a large scale.
Saying that agropiracy is an independent crime or an aggravating circumstance is not a detail. If it had become a real crime, it would have had:
As it is, however, it remains an “extra level” of severity, not an independent category.
What really changes with the new bill
According to what is read in the Masaf note, deterrence mechanisms are inserted into the Criminal Code with the introduction of two crimes and the aggravating circumstance:
In these three cases the penalties are increased by up to 1/3.
The bill strengthens the protection of the agri-food sector, this is undoubted, but it is best to avoid triumphalist tones: we are not faced with a revolution, rather a strengthening of the already existing rules.
