On November 28, 2025, the City Council of Gonzaga, in the province of Mantua, approved the new Land Management Plan (PGT) and, at the same time, a Regulation for the protection and sustainable development of the rural landscape that strictly regulates livestock farming. The starting point is impressive: in a municipality of just over 8,500 inhabitants, approximately 60,000 farmed animals live there, or seven animals for every citizen, with a density of 1,200 animals per square kilometer (source: ATS Valpadana, 2023 data). Gonzaga tops the provincial rankings for cattle numbers, and is at the top of the regional and national rankings.
What does the regulation provide?
The regulation approved in Gonzaga accomplishes three specific tasks.
First, it defines intensive livestock farming: a complex of structures with no functional connection to a farm, where the ratio between building area and farm area is insufficient, where there is no land capable of covering at least part of the animals’ feed needs, and where the capacity to treat manure is limited.
Second, it prohibits the establishment of new intensive livestock farms within the municipal area.
Third, it limits the expansion of existing farms beyond livestock weight thresholds established by animal type, establishes minimum distances from residential areas, and imposes environmental mitigation and compensation measures.
For non-intensive livestock farms, those effectively linked to the farm and the surrounding area, new settlements, conversions, and expansions remain possible, provided they adopt the best technical solutions for limiting emissions. According to press reports, the regulation has already blocked requests for an additional 10,000 heads of white meat pigs and calves.
Mayor Elisabetta Galeotti, interviewed by la Repubblica, summed up the decision thus: “We cannot allow the opening of new intensive factories.” This position, the administration is keen to emphasize, is not hostile to the sector in principle, but rather protects a traditional agricultural model (based on stables with few animals, primarily linked to the production of Parmigiano Reggiano) and the environment in which people and animals live.
The appeal of the Lombardy Region
A few months after the approval, the Lombardy Region announced it would appeal to the Regional Administrative Court of Brescia. Regional Agriculture Councilor Alessandro Beduschi argued, in summary, that imposing a limit on the number of animals allowed per farm “is not a matter for the Municipality.” Coldiretti and Confagricoltura supported the same position.
Civic committees and animal rights groups, however, expressed their support. Regarding general principles, a significant opening was also expressed by an agricultural union, the UCI: national president Mario Serpillo called Gonzaga “the symbol of a model that has transformed livestock farming into a heavy industry,” calling for “clear national legislation.”
The legal issue: can municipalities do it?
From a legal perspective, the central argument of the regional appeal, namely the alleged incompetence of the Municipality, is unconvincing. Article 117 of the Constitution assigns “territorial governance” to concurrent legislative power, but within this framework, Municipalities enjoy broad planning and regulatory powers, which are expressed, in Lombardy, through the instruments established by Regional Law 12/2005 (PGT, Plan of Regulations, Plan of Services) and by building and sanitation regulations. Administrative case law has repeatedly recognized that urban planning is not limited to building purposes, but can legitimately address other public interests: landscape protection, public health, air quality, and the agricultural use of land.
From this perspective, identifying the criteria for establishing new livestock farms in rural regulations—including live weight thresholds, distances from residential areas, and functional connection requirements with the farm—is fully within the jurisdiction of municipalities.
There is also a political short circuit worth highlighting: in 2022, the Lombardy Region itself unanimously approved a resolution requiring the Regional Council “to establish a moratorium on new permits for new installations/expansion of intensive livestock farms.” It’s hard not to see it as a contradiction that, today, the same Region is challenging the first municipality attempting to translate that approach into concrete regulations.
The European framework looms large. Directive 91/676/EEC (nitrates) and Directive IED 2010/75/EU, the 2024 revision of which strengthened the regime applicable to intensive pig and poultry farming, establish a framework requiring states and local authorities to adopt preventive measures against agricultural pollution. Italy is already exposed to the risk of fines for delays in implementing the Nitrates Directive. If national and regional institutions fail to reduce livestock pressure, it is inevitable that municipalities (who will be the first to suffer the effects) will attempt to do so within their own jurisdictions.
A model to rethink
For Animal Law Italia, the Gonzaga case demonstrates that the time has come to question the model based on intensive livestock farming, which causes environmental damage and fails to ensure animal welfare.
Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union recognizes animals as sentient beings and requires Member States to take their welfare fully into account when defining and implementing EU policies, particularly agricultural policies. The 2022 constitutional amendment brought animal protection into Article 9 of our Constitution, marking a paradigm shift destined to also impact the interpretation of urban planning and health laws.
No urban planning limit on livestock gigantism can replace a genuine reform of the system. But any measure that reduces the concentration of animals in sheds with no connection to the land is a step in the right direction. In Lombardy, nearly 4 million pigs, 2 million cattle and buffalo, 23 million poultry, and over a million rabbits are simultaneously raised. These figures pose health, environmental, and moral challenges that no single municipality can address alone, but which society and institutions cannot continue to ignore.
Gonzaga as an inspiring model
Animal Law Italia expresses its full support for the Municipality of Gonzaga. We urge the Lombardy Region to withdraw its appeal to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) and instead to open a public discussion on the regional livestock reform, consistent with the 2022 regional resolution and European obligations. At the same time, we advocate for a national framework that expressly recognizes municipalities’ power to regulate the establishment of intensive livestock farms to protect health, the environment, and animal welfare, and that accelerates the full implementation of the revised IED Directive.
We will continue to monitor the legal process and provide administrators, committees, and citizens with the legal tools to replicate models like Gonzaga’s. The road is long, but—as we repeat every time an institution chooses to raise the bar—justice for animals is also built one PGT at a time.