Die Haselstrauch-Plantagen für Nutella breiten sich maßlos aus

Pascal Derungs / 11.12.2023  Ferrero is eager for as much cultivation area as possible for its popular spread and covers entire regions with monocultures. Since 2018, the confectionery giant Ferrero has been pursuing a major plan. They call it „Hazelnut Italy“. The project aims to add at least an additional 22,000 hectares to the existing cultivation area and thereby increase hazelnut production throughout Italy by 30 percent. The company agreed on this in secret with several regional presidents at the time. A year later, the project became public. Areas in Tuscany and Umbria are affected, where hazelnuts were not previously cultivated and where the conditions are anything but favorable. However, the focus is on the province of Viterbo, in Upper Lazio, the Campagna Romana north of Rome. „Another 10,000 hectares of hazelnut crops will be squeezed in there,“ describes Dutch Italy correspondent Anne Branbergen in the magazine „Reportagen“. She has been living in this area for almost four decades and describes how aggressively the Ferrero company is proceeding and the damage it is causing to the environment and people. The diverse agro-culture of an entire region disappears. Even during the years of corona restrictions, the world’s third-largest confectionery company continued its new plantings undeterred. Small hazel bushes now line up on the flat areas towards the Autostrada 1, as well as along the Via Cassia. Wells were drilled and irrigation systems were built first, with kilometers of hoses for drip irrigation, supplied with enormous amounts of scarce groundwater. This terrain is completely unsuitable for hazelnuts, writes Anne Branbergen. Corn, cereals, vegetables and fruits, tobacco, or sheep herds are more suitable for this area. Until recently, all of this also characterized the landscape. Now you only drive along endless rows of young hazelnut plants. The „hazelnut carpet“ will soon extend to central Italy, to Tuscany and Umbria. It already covers the area around Lake Bolsena, where 3,000 hectares have already been planted, and parts of the Alfina plateau. 350 hectares have been claimed there – for now, warns the Italy correspondent. In the birthplace of Nutella, in Piedmont, the agro-multi wants to cultivate another 10,000 hectares of hazelnut plantations. Ferrero plunders groundwater and poisons the environment. Deeper and deeper drilling is necessary for groundwater. „Ridiculous amounts are pumped out every year for hazelnut production,“ Branbergen notes, „twenty billion liters, that’s how much is needed to deliver 41 million kilograms of hazelnuts in perfect condition to Ferrero’s warehouses in September.“ Most of it ends up as Nutella spread. Currently, 350 tons are consumed worldwide per day, 770 million jars per year, calculates the Dutch Italy correspondent. The massive use of chemicals to increase yields is also a problem. Ferrero demands flawless quality of the nuts, which forces farmers to spray intensively from May to July, especially against infestation by the green stink bug. Broad-spectrum chemicals such as Karate Zeon from the agrochemical company Syngenta are sprayed against the pest. The active ingredient is toxic to aquatic organisms and can be deadly if inhaled, according to EU classification. The intensive cultivation triggers a dangerous chain reaction. Fertilizers and herbicides do the rest. They deplete the soil until it becomes bare and hard. Bad for biodiversity, but good for the harvest in August and September, as the ripe nuts that have fallen to the ground can be easily collected with huge suction devices. However, toxic dust is stirred up in the process, which pollutes the air people breathe. In recent years, their residential area has turned into a „toxic kitchen,“ the author complains. In the report, she quotes a resident of the

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Masslos wuchern die Haselstrauch-Plantagen für Nutella

Pascal Derungs / 11.12.2023  Ferrero giert für seinen gefragten Brotaufstrich nach möglichst viel Anbaufläche und überzieht ganze Landstriche mit Monokulturen. Seit 2018 verfolgt der Süsswarenmulti Ferrero einen grossen Plan. Er nennt ihn «Haselnuss Italien». Das Projekt sieht vor, zur bereits bestehenden Anbaufläche mindestens weitere 22’000 Hektaren hinzuzufügen und dadurch die Haselnussproduktion in ganz Italien um 30 Prozent zu steigern. Das vereinbarte der Konzern damals im Stillen mit mehreren Regionalpräsidenten. Ein Jahr später wurde das Projekt öffentlich. Betroffen sind Gegenden in der Toskana und Umbrien, wo die Haselnuss zuvor nicht kultiviert wurde und wo die Verhältnisse dafür alles andere als vorteilhaft sind. Doch der Schwerpunkt liegt in der Provinz Viterbo, im Oberen Latium, der Campagna Romana nördlich von Rom. Dort sollen

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