Economic aftershocks
October 8, 2009
It's been six months since a massive earthquake struck the Abruzzo region in central Italy, killing over 300 people, devastating the regional capital L'Aquila, and leaving tens of thousands of people homeless.
While the plight of L'Aquila's displaced citizens has been well publicized, less attention has been paid to the surrounding farming communities that have been economically crippled by the consequences of the earthquake.
Disastrous timing
"The week of the earthquake - just before Easter - was precisely the time when lots of people would come here for their holidays and to buy our products," says Giulio Petronio, a sheep farmer from the mountain village of Castel del Monte in the Gran Sasso National Park. "So from one day to the next, we found ourselves missing a sizeable chunk of our market."
Along with the houses, hotels and roads, the quake also destroyed the fresh produce outlets that served L'Aquila and its inhabitants. Some 1,500 businesses – including supermarkets, grocery stores and restaurants – were forced to close on April 6, 2009, and have not re-opened since.
Farmers in the province have been left with a glut of produce and no consumers.
"When business is really bad, most businesses can lay off staff members with redundancy payments, but we can't lay off our sheep," Petronio explains with a wry smile, "they keep eating and producing!"
Distribution disaster
Although six months have passed, farmers in the province of L'Aquila have been unable to find substantial alternative outlets for their products.
Stockrooms are full of unsold meat and cheese, and some small dairies have even resorted to throwing away milk to avoid the expense of storing it.
Emergency markets organized by associations like Slow Food have helped farmers connect with consumers, but cannot offer long-term solutions.
"From a market perspective, for people like me, the help we need is for people to regularly consume our products again," Petronio stresses. "That's the only way we can keep going."
Following the quake and the evacuation of the city, almost 50,000 people stopped shopping for groceries regularly. Many of them are still living in temporary accommodation in tents or hotels, without private cooking facilities.
Farmers like Giulio Petronio say they are frustrated that the Italian government has chosen to provide these people with food aid sourced from outside the region, rather than buying up the excess of local produce.
Loss of tourism
Silvia de Paulis, an agronomist who works in the Gran Sasso National Park, shares Petronio's dissatisfaction. Working closely with the farmers in the area, she told Deutsche Welle that she doesn't think the government has done enough to support the precarious rural economy and encourage tourists to return to the region's three national parks and 19 nature reserves.
"Our tourist industry has gone down the tube because of fear and misinformation. Even in areas that are a long way from the seismic zone, bookings have been cancelled for months," de Paulis says.
“So we're asking people to come back to Abruzzo and eat our local products. In this way you can boost our economy and help us get back on our feet.”
Normality
L'Aquila locals say their main priority now is to return the city to a sense of normality.
"The most urgent thing to do is to get the city of L'Aquila up and running again," de Paulis explains, "and going shopping every day is symbolic of this."
While the first batch of new houses to be completed in the city attracted a lot of media coverage in Italy, many locals remain worried that rebuilding houses without simultaneously reconstructing business premises will turn L'Aquila into a town for commuter town.
"People who ran businesses here and find themselves unable to rebuild them will be forced to look elsewhere," warns Giulio Petronio.
"So there'll be a new emigrant exodus. We already lived through one just after the war, which not only depopulated the area but destroyed our local economic and cultural traditions," he says.
"Let's not make the same mistakes again."
Reporter: Dany Mitzman, Italy
Editor: Sam Edmonds