L'agricoltura, l'ambiente e la gestione del territorio nell'impegno politico-civile di Leonardo Melandri: il decentramento delle competenze in agricoltura

A speech addressed by Leonardo Melandri to the first elected Regional Council of Emilia-Romagna, in 1971, is the starting point to discuss and assess the process which led to the devolution, from the central government to the regional administrations, of the functions for agricultural policy implementation in Italy. It was a very difficult and contradictory transition, starting a long period, in which the Italian policy making activity related to agriculture was heavily hindered by uncertainty about the institutions responsible for the administrative and financial management of the measures decided at both, the national and the European level. Major critical points have been found in the large partiality of the devolution process, in the initial exclusion of the regional administrations from the implementation of the European Common agricultural policy, and in the fragmentation of the actions for land reclamation, forestry policy, and rural development.