MEMBER VOICE — ITALY

CIA-Agricoltori Italiani warns that Italian and European agriculture is caught between simultaneous shocks — energy costs and fertiliser prices — and calls on the EU to respond with the same urgency as during the pandemic.

CIA President Cristiano Fini has taken Italian agriculture’s concerns directly to EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, urging him to champion extraordinary EU-level action in response to the Middle East crisis. The message was unambiguous: Italian and European agriculture is facing a convergence of pressures — energy costs surging, fertiliser prices out of control, production costs spiralling — that demands a response well outside the ordinary. The emergency, CIA warns, is already inside farm businesses and is moving through the supply chain to consumers.

“Exceptional situations require exceptional measures. European food security is at stake. The effects on the sector will persist for months, even in the event of a rapid de-escalation.”— Cristiano Fini, President, CIA-Agricoltori Italiani, April 2026

The scale of the shock is visible across the continent. According to CIA’s data, agricultural diesel prices have surged between 80% and 100% in France, over 41% in Spain, around 47% in Austria and over 60% in Italy since the conflict began. In Finland and Sweden, increases of 40% and 50% respectively have been recorded, with electricity prices also rising sharply. The picture is uniform and alarming — and it is landing on farm businesses at the peak of the spring operating season.

The immediate pressures

CIA identifies fertilisers as the major concern. The explosion in prices — driven by disruption to supply routes through the Strait of Hormuz and the longstanding dependence on production concentrated in the Persian Gulf, Russia and Belarus — threatens to compromise the current production season. At the same time, energy costs are hitting farm businesses from multiple directions: fuel prices are rising, electricity bills are climbing, and the Italian government’s Decreto Bollette is, in CIA’s view, moving in the wrong direction — disincentivising the shift to alternative energy sources by cutting support for agricultural biogas production. The combined effect on farm margins is severe, arriving at a moment when the wider global commercial environment is already generating significant additional uncertainty for Italian agri-food. As the CIA President put it, “the agricultural sector remains a hostage in conflicts rather than being recognised as the vital resource for humanity that it is — and this must change.”

How Europe is responding — and what is still missing

The EU-level response is beginning to take shape but remains incomplete. On 16 April, the European Commission activated the crisis mechanism of the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF), with retroactive effect from 28 February 2026, to support the fishing and aquaculture sector. More broadly, the Commission is preparing a temporary State Aid framework — modelled on pandemic-era and Ukraine crisis precedents — that would allow member states to provide direct grants of up to €50,000 per farm business and cover up to 50% of additional costs directly attributable to the crisis, including fuel, energy and fertilisers. The framework is expected to be published before the end of April. A fertiliser action plan — focused on reducing external dependency, increasing domestic production and developing biological alternatives — is expected in early May.

Yet the response at member state level has been strikingly uneven. Only five EU member states — Spain, France, Greece, Ireland and Italy — have so far adopted specific measures for the agricultural sector. Only Greece and Spain have introduced direct aid for fertiliser costs. Spain has deployed a comprehensive €5 billion package including direct diesel subsidies, fertiliser cost compensation and expanded credit access. Greece has introduced a 15% subsidy on fertiliser invoices and a diesel rebate of €0.16/litre. Italy’s measures — temporary excise reductions and a tax credit for agricultural diesel limited to March — have, in CIA’s assessment, been absorbed by international market movements within 24 to 48 hours.

What the CIA is calling for

CIA’s requests are both immediate and structural. In the short term, the EU must provide direct support to farmers on fertiliser purchases as early as 2026, immediately suspend import tariffs on fertilisers, and take urgent action on CBAM — the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism — which, in the current context, risks becoming an additional unsustainable cost. European-level price monitoring to curb speculation and joint energy procurement to contain prices are also among the CIA’s priorities. Food production, CIA insists, must be excluded from any rationing scenario.

On liquidity, CIA calls for a pandemic-scale support model to prevent farm business paralysis as costs rise and margins compress. And in the medium term, Europe must accelerate domestic fertiliser production, remove regulatory barriers to alternative inputs such as digestate, and ensure the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) beyond 2027 is adequately funded — with any budget cuts firmly off the table. “Without coordinated EU intervention,” Fini warned,“the concrete risk is a reduction in productive capacity and a new spike in supermarket prices. Europe must decide whether it truly wants to protect its agriculture or leave it exposed to global shocks.“

This update is part of an ongoing series in which WFO is gathering and amplifying contributions from its member organisations worldwide in response to the Middle East crisis.

About CIA-Agricoltori Italiani

Founded in 1977, CIA-Agricoltori Italiani is one of the largest agricultural trade organisations in Italy and Europe, representing 650,000 members and 170,000 farming businesses across all agricultural sectors. CIA is headquartered in Rome with a representative office in Brussels and is a member of COPA (Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations of the EU) as well as WFO.