ITALY:WILL IT take a "mozzarella crisis" to prompt Italy's political class to finally take meaningful action against organised crime? The question asks itself in the wake of international concern about the safety of its famous buffalo mozzarella cheese, a product that comes almost exclusively from the Campania region around Naples.
Concern about buffalo mozzarella has been expressed by both Japan and South Korea which, for the time being, have banned imports of the famous white cheese. The concern is focused on reports that elevated levels of dioxin were found in samples of buffalo mozzarella tested by Italian health officials last week.
The European Commission confirmed yesterday that health commissioner Androula Vassiliou had asked Italy to provide information by today with regard to these tests.
Environmentalists have argued for some time that the rubbish crisis that has afflicted Campania since 1994 will eventually have a seriously negative impact on the region's agricultural products.
That crisis reached a new peak over the Christmas period when Naples and the surrounding region were swamped with tonnes of uncollected rubbish, with local authorities claiming they had nowhere to dump it given that all the dumps in the greater Neapolitan area were full.
The Neapolitan Mafia, the camorra, is believed to bear a major responsibility for the rubbish crisis since it has long operated huge-scale illegal dumping, some of it toxic industrial waste, around Naples. Scientists and environmentalists believe that dioxin poisons have entered the water and poisoned the land. Yesterday the health ministry confirmed that 83 farms in Campania had been quarantined because they had registered high levels of dioxin.
Although various government figures, including agriculture minister Paolo de Castro, yesterday tried to play down the problem, sales of buffalo mozzarella in the Campania region have reportedly dropped 35-60 per cent, while tourism operators have complained of a serious loss of business over the rubbish crisis.