Italian farmers are taking a major new stand in their battle against foreign food clones that threaten Italy's reputation for food excellence.
Farm association Coldiretti will stage a massive demonstration in Bologna on Wednesday, dubbed Hands Off Italian Quality.
Coldiretti said Monday it expect to draw one and a half million farmers to the central Italian city.
The response to its latest battle cry has been so strong, it said, that organisers have been forced to move the demo venue from Piazza Grande to the even bigger Piazza VIII Agosto.
Presenting the latest data from the European Union, Coldiretti noted that China produced 86% of the 250 million counterfeit goods sold in the EU last year, a rise of 234% on 2005.
The most common bogus goods are still cigarettes, clothing and common tech products, it said, but there has been an "alarming" rise in "dangerous fakes" such as medicines - whose imports were up 400% - foodstuffs and health and beauty care products.
In the light of recent Chinese food scares in the United States, Coldiretti said, a "flood" of tomato paste, preserves and canned tomatoes from the Asian giant - up 150% in the first three months of this year - posed "a particularly dangerous situation".
It was all the more urgent to boost safety checks, Coldiretti said, since the European Union recently turned down compulsory labelling for food products, "raising the real possibility that imported products are passed off as made in Italy".
Paste and other tomato products, it said, are one of the bastions of Italian food excellence and "must be defended at all costs," Coldiretti said.
Tomatoes from China account for more than 30% of all the food imports from the country, it said.
China sends about half of its tinned tomatoes to Italy, it noted.
Italy is the second-biggest tomato exporter in the world after the United States but China has been gobbling up ground since it started exporting the fruit in the late 1990s.
Coldiretti recently warned that Chinese tomato products are flooding markets worldwide, "destined to be diluted and mixed with Italian produce so as to pose as Italian on our most traditional dishes worldwide, such as pizza and pasta".
Ahead of the Bologna demo, tomato farmers will whip up some genuine Italian tomato conserve in front of parliament on Tuesday.
And while their cohorts are trooping through Bologna on Wednesday, back in Rome Coldiretti will stage sit-ins outside the Chamber of Deputies, the Senate and the Agriculture Ministry.
A Coldiretti delegation on Monday discussed its concerns with the leader of the largest Italian government party, Piero Fassino of the Democratic Left.
After the talks, Fassino said Coldiretti's objectives, including compulsory labelling and more help for native food glories in warding off foreign threats, were "goals that correspond to the country's interest in boosting and safeguarding decisive sectors in the national economy".
He proposed a "great pact for Italian agriculture".
Italy has grown increasingly assertive in protecting its food specialities, winning European Union approval for a slew of regionally specific produce and pushing for international standards for Italian-style pizza as well as a seal of approval for restaurants that cook Italian as it should be cooked.
CHINA ADMITS THREAT TO OWN REPUTATION.
There have been at least four food scares in the United States involving tainted Chinese products including fish, toothpaste and pet food in recent months.
Chinese authorities have admitted about 20% of its domestic food market does not meet satisfactory hygiene standards.
On Monday a senior Chinese food and drugs agency official, Sun Xianxe, said the scares posed "serious problems for our image and credibility".
He said that over the past 12 months his agency had stripped 128 medicine producers of their licenses and ordered provincial authorities to review standards for food and health products.
