Food-Wine

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - The Lazio regional administrative court (TAR) on Thursday upheld fines totalling 12.5 million euros slapped on 26 pasta producers and the national producers' union Unipi for creating a cartel with the aim of stifling competition and driving up prices.

The fines were imposed last February by Italy's anti-trust authority which examined price trends from October 2006 through March 2008.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 29 - Italian women lead one out of three agricultural firms in the country, a study by farmers' union Coldiretti revealed Thursday.

According to the report, women run nearly 260,000 agricultural business in Italy, the second leading sector for female business owners behind commercial services.

Over one in five women entrepreneurs work in the agriculture sector, added the organization whICH said the number is bound to increase.

(ANSA) - Florence, October 27 - This year should be a good vintage for Chianti Classico wine, according to the consortium of producers who make the famed Italian red wine.

''We were already very optimistic before and during harvest but now we are sure 2009 will be a good year, having been able to touch the fruit which was produced with such care over the past months,'' Chianti Classico consortium chairman Marco Pallanti said on Tuesday.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 26 - A restaurant tucked away in the hills of central Italy was declared the nation's best by the 2010 Restaurants of Italy guide released Monday.

Published by the leading food and wine magazine, Gambero Rosso, the guide again put the Ristorante Vissani, named after its chef and founder, Gianfranco, in first place with 95 points out of 100.

(ANSA) - Washington, October 21 - American authorities no longer have any cause to block the imports of the prized Italian wine Brunello di Montalcino, Italian Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said here.

The green light came from the head of the United States Treasury's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), John Manfreda, who met with Zaia on Tuesday.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 20 - The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced major reforms to its international roundtable on food security on Tuesday.

The organization said member states agreed to make the Committee of World Food Security (CFS) ''the foremost international platform dealing with food security and nutrition'' as a central component in the global strategy for stamping out hunger.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 14 - The global recession has pushed the number of hungry people in the world to over one billion, according to a report released Wednesday by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Food Programme.

Falling exports and diminishing foreign aid have hit developing countries hardest, according to the report, plunging 100 million people into the ranks of the world's hungry, an increase of over 9%, over the past year to the highest levels since 1970.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 12 - Agriculture must become more productive if the world is to avoid widespread famine in the next 40 years, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said Monday.

Opening a high-level expert forum in Rome on how to feed the world in 2050, Diouf said ''the combined effect of population growth, strong income growth and urbanization will almost double the demand for food, feed and fibre''.

As a result, ''agriculture will have no choice but to be more productive,'' Diouf said.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 12 - The man who made decaffeinated coffee acceptable Italy and pioneered the marketing of bottled mineral water has died at the age of 80.

Austrian-born Tommaso Berger built a food empire after the war and made the Hag decaffeinated coffee brand, which he acquired from a German merchant in 1950, a household name by marketing it as the closest to the real thing with all the aroma and taste of coffee but without the caffein.

He also promoted drinking bottled mineral water and at one time owned the Fiuggi, Sangemini and Levissima brands.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 12 - Global food stores will be running dangerously low in 40 years unless the world starts spending more on agriculture, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said Monday.

Opening a high-level expert forum in Rome on how to feed the world in 2050, Diouf said food production would have to increase by 70% in order to feed the estimated 9.1 billion people who will inhabit the earth by mid-century, around 2.3 billion more than today.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 12 - Food production will have to increase by 70% over the next 40 years in order to feed the world's population, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization Director General Jacques Diouf said Monday.

Opening a high-level expert forum in Rome on how to feed the world in 2050, Diouf listed challenges to producing enough food for the estimated 9.1 billion people who will inhabit the Earth by mid-century, around 2.3 billion more than today.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 8 - Over three million people in Italy cannot afford to feed themselves, an Italian food bank reported Thursday.

The study, by Milan university researchers, showed that 4.4% of Italian families live so far beneath the poverty line that they run the risk of hunger.

According to the study, presented at a conference on poverty at Rome's city hall, the problem is most widespread on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia where one in ten residents live under the poverty line.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 7 - Last month's unusually high amount of rainfall, especially in the south, has produced a bumper crop of mushrooms, the Coldiretti farmers union reported on Wednesday.

In the northern Reggio Emilia region's Val di Taro, which produces the only mushroom which has qualified for a European Union quality PGI stamp, the Borgotaro, the production of porcini mushrooms has set a new record, Coldiretti said.

(ANSA) - Rome, October 7 - A total of 40 million euros has been set aside for relief efforts in flood-ravaged areas of northeastern Sicily, civil protection chief Guido Bertolaso said Wednesday.

In a report to parliament, Bertolaso said the funds divided evenly between the civil protection service and the regional government of Sicily.

Bertolaso added that the governor of Sicily, Raffaele Lombardo, would be placed at the head of future relief efforts.