THEgreen entrepreneurs who have chosen a profession that is a lifestyle: sustainable, ethical, in communion with nature. Where you work with innovative techniques to leave your children a healthy environment. Five women tell their different paths of excellence in green agriculture.
«With biodynamic I have given new life to my impoverished lands»
Anna Federici 66 years old, Boccea farm, Rome
His is a successful example of recovery of soil near a city, the capital, precisely. Here in the early eighties, Anne Federici – returning from Texas, where he studied Agriculture – takes over a family businessa village that had long been inhabited by a hundred families and which, with the death of his grandfather, had fallen into ruin.
Anna Federici (photo by Viola Damiani)
“The American university had given me advanced training and open to understanding unconventional currents, which enhance the soil and biodiversity,” he says. «When I started cultivating the fields directlyI found the soil very depleted of organic matter, I didn’t know what to do. The conversion to biodynamic was the only possible solutionbecause it offers a vision of agriculture in which the company is a living but man-made ecosystem, where a mediation between man and nature must be found».
Biodiversity: true sustainable revolution
The revolution is triggered starting from biodiversity, «because the more there is, the more resilient the ecosystem itself is». The crop rotation is therefore startedwhich also provides for the rotation of vegetable crops and animal breeding on the same land, and the care of the soil in a natural way through green manure, a practice that restores life to the earth through the burial of plants, or parts of plants, in their fresh state to nourish soil biodiversity.
The process of rebuilding soil fertility has been slow and long, but today the Boccea is an oasis of pasturesarable land, vegetable gardens and an expanse of 2000 olive trees of different varieties, planted 50 years ago, which produce up to 5000 liters of extra virgin olive oil every year.
Three herds of beef cattle, about 300 Marchigiana, limousine and mestizo breeds. We produce vegetables, cereals and vegetables of all kinds, hay for internal needs. The last born, a company chicken coop (its products are on sale at NaturaSì). «My strength was also my team, made up largely of women willing to change their mentality, to think of agriculture as the rediscovery of knowledge».
«Our breeding is chosen by students for their theses and internships»
Marta Galimberti 31 years old, Cascina Bagaggera, Valletta Brianza (Lecco)
Martha Galimberti. (Photo by Viola Damiani)
We are in the Brianza Lecchese, in a dimension where the individual and nature are linked in a relationship of harmony, exchange, respect for the living in all its forms, always beautiful because they are different, to the point that the company also pursues the objective of including people fragile in the production processes. This is the soul of Cascina Bagaggeraa social organic farm located in the Montevecchia and Valle del Curone Regional Park, whose main activity is the breeding of chamois goats.
«I like to define ours as a varied project that aims at environmental, ethical and social sustainability» says Marta. Here new and ancient manufacturing techniques are put into practice. «We take care of the goats according to their natural needs starting from the right diet, up to grazing and the winter break, without seasonally adjusting the deliveries». The fodder used by the farmhouse is dried in the barn with a modern ventilation system which keeps the nutritional elements of the fresh grass intact.
An innovative farm
«It is an innovative practice for which our breeding has been chosen for years for thesis and internships by agricultural science and animal welfare university students» he says. The pigs are raised in a semi-wild state. The goats’ milk is transformed in the company dairy with vegetable rennet. The bread is made in the small laboratory with the flours of cultivated cereals and the products can be purchased and consumed within the company, so that the consumer becomes aware of the origin of the food he buys and eats (its products are on sale at NaturaSì ).
«Grocery shopping is a revolutionary act. It is important to understand what you are financing when you buy a product». Today, alongside the social offer of the Agrinido, an educational service for children from 6 months to 3 years of age which is the first reality of its kind in Brianza, orientation and job training projects for young people with disabilities are followed in the farmhouse in collaboration with Corimbo Onlus, which is based in a building inside the complex.
«We have a technique that ensures more rice yields and fewer weeds»
Ariane Lotti 41 years old, Tenuta San Carlo farm, Grosseto
Ariane Lotti (photo by Viola Damiani)
Today she is the first and only farmer in Tuscany to grow organic rice, yet many had advised her to give up convinced that she would not make it. Born and raised in New York, Ariane has dedicated her life to working on sustainable food production models. “In high school, success coincided with becoming a doctor or a lawyer. I understood, during an environmental studies program, that my love for the protection of nature could become my career »he says. After studying at Yale, his commitment to organic farming took her to the big cities and finally to Grosseto, where today she is in charge of the family farm, a 480-hectare cereal-growing estate in which he started a process of modernization focusing precisely on organic rice.
«I chose organic because cultivating in synergy with nature is easier than fighting against it. Furthermore, research on agro-ecological systems shows that they are the most resilient to sudden climate changes »he explains. To reduce water consumption and improve product quality, Ariane experiments with two innovative techniques. The first is a precision method for water management, the other is a practice developed by organic rice farmers in the North and adapted to the Maremma climate.
Sustainable food production
Ariane tells it like this: «In autumn we sow a herb of vetch and ryegrass, similar to the classic grass in gardens. The grass grows during the winter and in May we sow the rice directly (its products are on sale at NaturaSì). Then we cut the grass and flooded the field. The effect of the rye grass and the mulch slows down the growth of weeds and initially also the germination of the rice, which however then establishes itself and grows vigorously, overcoming the competition from the weeds».
It is a revolutionary sustainable technique because it allows most of the work to be done in autumn, when farmers have more time, and then to manage weeds by also working on soil quality. «The goal is to obtain a yield greater than 10 percent with fewer weeds. We young farmers have the courage to take up challenges. I tell women not to give up, because they are making an important contribution to the economy and livelihood of rural areas, producing quality food that respects the environment».
«We are not authors of wine, but actors of nature»
Sara Vezza 43 years old, Sara Vezza and Josetta Saffirio farm, Monforte d’Alba (Cuneo)
Fifth generation of farmers, with mother as a viticulture teacher and father as an oenologist, Sara Vezza is a predestined, but places its special imprint on the wine cellar inherited from the mother, Josetta Saffirio, deciding to start her, in 2004, on a sustainable path and the organic method. «Initially I did it for health reasons: I could no longer go to the vineyard, because the chemicals used caused me allergies» says Vezza, who produces some of the finest Barolo and Nebbiolo.
A new sustainable cellar
So, begins to ban herbicides, pesticides, chemical insecticides and admit only copper and sulfur to protect the vines from fungal diseases. Organic fertilizers. Prototypes of low weight tractors. “I feel the great responsibility of the land that I have inherited and that I will leave to my children, to guarantee a healthy environment, to build values for the generations to come” he clarifies.
In 2006 designs the structure of the new cellar by isolating the perimeter with natural cork to reduce heat exchange, three years later he created the Biopark, with a managed forest thanks to which it protects the flora and fauna and reduces the carbon footprint, then built a photovoltaic system which for several years will ensure full energy independence: «L ‘farmer», he says, «is the first to feel the dramatic effects of climate change on his skin”. In 2015 he obtained the certification of a sustainable company, in 2017 that of a CCPB organic company
Of the relationship that binds her in a profound intimacy with nature, explains: «We are pieces of a mosaic. We are not authors of wine, but actors of nature: we help plants grow like children and we are in contact with the vitality of the earth». Two years ago Vezza won the Istat Women and Sustainability award and last year she was among the three finalists of the EU Organic Awards, in the Best Organic Farmer category, the European Union competition for virtuous organic companies. «Today I feel the need to leave a stronger legacy and, therefore, I have the goal of committing myself to a path of sustainability that takes care of the entire production process, from on-site cultivation to the disposal of the bottle».
«My beer enhances the common territory»
Elisa Lavagnino 41 years old, I Paloffi farm, Taverna del Vara brewery
In the Bio District of Val di Vara – not far from the Cinque Terre – women continue the bet launched in the 1990s by a visionary mayor who bet on organic farming to renew an area that was depopulating. Here the women manage farms and agritourisms, they are breeders producing organic milk, meat, eggs, they cultivate red fruits or, again, they are brewers. Like Elisa Lavagnino, who started the Taverna del Vara brewery together with two sisters, returning to her grandparents’ lands after three years spent in Brittany, a doctorate in Genoa, a job as a European designer.
«I felt the need to come back encouraged by the idea of networking with other farmers who, like me, had chosen total respect for nature, the enhancement of the common territory and trust in human relationships». In 2014 Elisa Lavagnino begins to grow hops in his newborn sustainable farm I Paloffi: no chemical fertilizers, no pesticides, rotation of the land, maximum attention to water consumption.
It starts from about twenty plants, today it has about six hundred and at the end of the year Taverna del Vara will become an agricultural brewery, because it will directly produce 65 percent of the raw material. Elisa Lavagnino witnesses a way of acting that coincides with her being: she wants to do things right, go slowly, continue to find her own compass in being ethical. Almost 60 percent of the territory of the Bio District of Val di Vara – the first of its kind in Italy, the second in Europe – it is certified organic: Lavagnino has embarked on a sustainable path aimed at certification. It currently produces, among others, three organic beers: «A classic Golden Ale from organic malts from Monferrato, a Brown Ale and a Pale Ale, respectively with chestnuts and organic raspberries from the area» (its products are for sale online).
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