L'impatto del sistema nazionale dei controlli in campo agroalimentare sul tessuto produttivo: il caso dei prodotti in regime di qualità ai sensi del Regolamento (CE) n. 1151-2012

In recent years - partly as a result of severe chronicle episodes (from BSE, to Avian Influenza, to the so-called "Terra dei Fuochi") and in general of the interest of the media in the issue of alimentation - the attention of the public opinion on the food control system has increased greatly. Not always, however, the above mentioned public opinion correctly perceives the complexity of the system in question, a complexity that largely derives from the manifold articulation of the productive system that, at this stage, fulfils the manufacturing and distribution of food, as well as the plurality of organizational models, created by the market or institutionally defined (for example, organic food). Regarding the control system, the current opinions are quite contradictory, oscillating, depending on the situation, from the accusation of "oppressing" the economic operators (traders) and their unconditional defense as a “bulwark” of the consumers. The first aim of the research carried out as part of the PhD was therefore to analyze the regulatory set – about safety, quality, etc. from which the different needs of control and supervision emanate. Connected to this scenario, there is a regulatory process started, always at an European level, in the last decades, which has tended to standardize just the system of controls in the agricultural and food sector, the system of which we proceeded to rebuild the existing regulatory framework as defined at European and national levels . On the basis of this reconstruction all the subjects (public and private) were analyzed in detail and, in the Italian case, they are the actors of the control system and the functions assigned to them. The resulting organizational model - consisting of more than thirty subjects (central, regional, local governments and private individuals wielding public functions), of which twenty-three are directly involved in the inspection - looks very articulate and lets assume the existence of overlaps and duplications in the controls. These phenomena have been analyzed in detail, considering the different areas of control (sanitary and commodity-related and fiscal) through some interaction matrices that have shown the existence of high levels of interaction not only within the same area, but also between different areas. The control system as a whole (including the various areas mentioned above) makes a really significant amount of activities: in fact, referring only to the inspections in 2011 there were over a million of visits and in the following year more than eight hundred thousand. In the case of the quality productions regulated by the Regulation (EC) No . 1151/2012, the control system is further complicated; such productions (PDO and PGI) are in fact subject to a "dual control mechanism", meaning that they are subject to "ordinary" inspection and to those resulting from their specific regulations . For the products in question, the control system is divided into four "channels": the one of proper inspection, the one of certification (played by Certificate Authorities), the one of trade supervision (played by Consortiums) and that of supervision of Certificate Authorities (played by 'ICQRF and / or by Regions) . The entire system operates at a highly differentiated production scenario in which names characterized by large-scale productions, “niche” names and names at start-up point coexist. On the basis of this interpretative scheme the ultimate goal pursued by the research was to provide an empirical study aimed at quantifying the "weight" of the control system in the case of the productions in question. The survey was undertaken by integrating administrative data with information obtained through a direct survey . The performed calculations progressively consider the different types of control up to supplement the available information in a regression model, which aims at explaining the plurality of checks themselves in relation to other available variables. The resulting picture shows, for a large number of names, that the control system appears to be coherent with the regulatory framework and in some ways - especially for some classes of product - very efficient. For other denominations, however, the picture that emerges from the elaborations underlines some critical issues. Finally, the estimates of the regression show that the variables that significantly influence the number of controls are represented by the number of operators subjected and by the number of samples taken.