Philip Morris Italy and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry have signed a new multi-year agreement relaunching the commitment to the competitiveness, transformation and sustainability of the national tobacco supply chain.
For the first time since the beginning of the signing of the agreements with the ministry, of which the company has been a pioneer at a national level since the early 2000s, the agreement extends the time horizon of the strategic collaboration up to ten years, targeting the 2033-2034 business year with total investments of up to 1 billion euros.
The new agreement includes the commitment of Philip Morris ad purchase approximately half of the total production of Italian raw tobaccoconfirming the company as the largest private investor in the Italian tobacco supply chain, the most important in Europe in terms of volumes.
Marco Hannappel, president and CEO of Philip Morris Italy
The company – which since 2011 has been the first to sign multi-year commitments through a unique agreement of its kind, which provides a vertically integrated supply chain without intermediaries – with this signature he lays the foundations for a long-term visionan essential element to guarantee sustainability and strategic planning for the agricultural supply chain.
«It is with great pride that we announce a framework agreement that looks even further ahead than what has been done in the recent past: a time horizon of ten years, for a total investment that will amount to up to one billion euros and which it adds to the over 2 billion already invested starting from the early 2000s” he declared Marco Hannappelpresident and CEO of Philip Morris Italy.
«With this agreement» he adds «the Italian tobacco supply chain is confirmed at the center of the Philip Morris ecosystem in Italyan integrated end-to-end supply chain connected to combustion-free products, which today it involves around 41 thousand people throughout the national territory in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors, actively contributing to the ambitious vision of building a smoke-free future.”
“Today we signed an extremely important agreement for the sectorin terms of duration and quantity of product purchased, the value of which has a certain impact on the policies that will also concern other areas of agriculture, a sector to which in its entirety, together with Minister Lollobrigida and the entire Meloni government, we intend to ensure maximum support , to face commercial and production challenges with confidence and growth prospects adequate to the actual value of our primary sector” declared the undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, The Senator Patrizio La Pietra.
The agreement with MASAF takes into account not only the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) expiring in 2027, but also the future one, which will come into force from 2028 until 2034, with the aim of protecting and promoting the Italian tobacco supply chain also with reference to the challenges that the sector will have to face on a national, European and international level, implementing a integrated agro-industrial supply chain model of which Philip Morris is among the most significant interpreters in Italy.
The agreement also recognizes the importance of combat the problem of gangmastering more and more effectively through the dissemination and implementation of relevant guidelines such as Philip Morris International’s Good Agricultural Labor Practices (ALP), also promoting initiatives aimed at continuous innovation in the sector, sustainability and the development of skills, as well as the implementation and dissemination of sector research and analysis, with particular attention to the issues of innovation, sustainability and skills developmentwhich have always characterized this supply chain.
The signing of the agreement confirms the path undertaken by Philip Morris starting from the early 2000s in the development of an innovative model of tobacco cultivation which has guaranteed over the years economic sustainability for around 1000 tobacco companiesactive in the main Italian tobacco-growing regions: Campania, Umbria, Veneto and Tuscany, with an estimated direct, indirect and induced impact in approximately 28,700 employees to the cultivation and primary transformation phase.
