Tuscany’s Wine Harvest At Risk As Seasonal Workers Blocked By Italy’s Black List

Italy’s agricultural cooperative Fedagripesca has warned that Tuscany’s annual grape harvest is at risk as its seasonal workers come mainly from countries now included on Italy’s COVID-19 black list.

A famous wine producing region, Tuscany’s farmers are growing increasingly concerned that the autumn vendemmia (grape harvest) will be obstructed by a lack of seasonal workers. Each year, around five thousand workers arrive in Italy from foreign countries, most commonly from Eastern Europe.

However, due to rising numbers of coronavirus infections, many Eastern European nations have been added to Italy’s so-called “black list”, preventing seasonal workers from entering into the country.

It seems unlikely that border closures will be lifted any time soon as Italy is seeing a rising number of infections originating from arrivals from abroad. If the travel restrictions continue, Tuscany’s Fedagripesca Confcooperative has voiced concern that this year’s harvest will suffer.

In an aim to save the season, Fedagripesca has appealed to the government to simplify the process of using “agricultural vouchers” as payment. The vouchers allow the vineyards to find short term workers while helping boost the agricultural sector’s economy.

“It would allow students, those unemployed, and restauranteurs who are out of work to come to the vineyards to lend a hand and earn money which they can then spend, helping to kickstart the economy,” said Ritano Baragli, vicepresident of Fedagripesca Confcooperative Toscana.

Baragli has criticized the government over their “allergy” towards using vouchers saying, “the bureaucracy blocks short term employment.”

The government had passed a new decree on March 18 allowing family members up to the sixth degree of kinship to help out, but Baragli has said it is not enough. “The population that works in agriculture is old,” he commented, “so relatives are old too.”

Although many vineyards have now mechanised their harvesting process, there are still many others that collect the grapes by hand. They predict a small harvest this September and, on top of that, they will also have to face the subsequent challenge of a struggling export market. Baragli predicts the fall in international sales of Italian wine to be “above 4%” this year.