The objective of the campaign initiated by Confagricoltura and involving the open-air salt pans of Puglia (most notably the Margherita di Savoia in Sardinia), Trapani in Sicily, and Cervia in Romagna is to improve the quality of salt produced in Italy, beginning with sea salt. A critical sector worth 200 million euros in total, 60 of which are produced along the coasts (10 thousand hectares of farmed land to extract 1 million and 200 thousand tons per year). "We aim - says Sandro Gambuzza, vice president of Confagricoltura - to give concrete recognition to a sector that operates in the protection of the territory, the environment and the ecosystem, producing a natural element of great nutritional and also economic value" . The immediate goal is to recognize saliculture as an agricultural activity rather than an industrial one (as it is currently). The government has responded positively to the request. For a long time, this has been the case in France. Giampiero Comolli, president of the Observatory on Italian Edible Salt, is likewise upbeat about the amount of salt that will be produced. "The various sea and mine salt pans could produce 4-5 million tons per year, while the actual overall real productivity stands at 2-2.4 million tons, of which 1 million for anti-icing road use, 1 million for industrial chemical use, 240/280 thousand tons for food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and therapeutic use." The French, that are also market champions globally and own the enormous Margherita di Savoia salt pan in Puglia and a storage area and warehouses in Porto Viro (Rovigo) where salts from French mines and some salt pans in Spain and Tunisia are transported for processing, have their sights set on Italian edible salt.
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