
Success for the event organized by Condifesa Catania, with the support of Asnacodi Italia and ISMEA, to present the new AgriCAT Fund to Sicilian agricultural companies, an innovative solution to safeguard the farmer's income and transversal for all agricultural businesses.
Over 350 million euros to support agricultural companies and protect them from frost, drought and floods. In a nutshell, this will be the operation of the AgriCAT Fund. An innovative risk management tool starting from January 1st 2023 throughout Italy. To discuss and explore this new tool, the conference entitled "AgriCAT 2023 Fund, an innovative tool for the protection of incomes in agriculture" was held on 6 December in Catania, organized by Condifesa Catania, with the collaboration of Asnacodi Italia and ISMEA. The works were opened by Salvatore Cannata, president of Condifesa Catania, who wanted to thank all the players in the Risk Management chain in Sicily, the institutions, the technicians, the agricultural companies, in a particularly dedicated moment for the Sicilian agricultural sector. Opening speeches continued with the greeting of Francesco Badalà, Manager of the credit and damage operating unit of the Sicilian agriculture department. The Manager wanted to bring the department's closeness to the world of risk management, highlighting the need to bring agricultural companies closer to the sector.
The AgriCAT Fund is a mutual instrument that covers all agricultural businesses in our country from catastrophic events, i.e. frost-frost, drought and floods. The innovative tool was presented by Camillo Zaccarini, ISMEA manager, who explained in detail its functioning and the state of the art regarding the experimentation conducted. Zaccarini also focused on the characteristics and results achieved by the experimentation in Sicily which saw the cultivation of oranges under the lens of the research conducted by ISMEA technicians. Results of the findings corroborated by the presentation of Rosario Verzì, technician of Condifesa Catania.Umberto Guidoni, co-general director of ANIA, in his speech via video wanted to underline the importance of finding the right balance between the different players that make up the risk management sector, the AgriCAT Fund itself has the important role of succeeding in this aim.The role of technicians in the changed panorama of continuously evolving insurance and mutual solutions was presented by Pierfrancesco Paternò, president of the College of Agricultural Experts of the Province of Catania, who also brought the vision of the College in relation to the new AgriCAT Fund.“The AgriCAT Fund, underlined Giuseppe Raimondi, director of Condifesa Catania, is a very important tool for our businesses, a solution that aims to be able to spread the culture of risk management even where it is not yet well known. Therefore a tool that must become complementary to the other solutions available for agricultural companies, subsidized policies, mutual funds, but not only."
In fact, even active defense solutions, as underlined by Andrea Berti, director of Asnacodi Italia, must become an additional weapon at the service of the agricultural entrepreneur, "when I refer to active defense tools, I mean all those solutions that technology makes available to us, anti-hail nets, decision supports, artificial intelligence, etc. The AgriCAT Fund is an opportunity not to be missed, continued Berti, it is an activator of unparalleled change, a real paradigm shift for risk management in agriculture. A change that sees a necessary 360-degree approach to risk management!”