Bologna, Italy

SEEDS OF COMMUNITY

The bond with Bologna, my hometown has, if possible, become even stronger since I discovered Arvaia. The people of this vegetable and fruit garden welcomed me a year ago, allowing me to photograph and document its life during the four seasons. Arvaia can be considered the garden of about 300 families who have chosen to be actors of their own nourishment and give a new meaning to food.

In Bolognese dialect “Arvaia” means pea, where various seeds are joined together inside the same pod. Lorenzo, farmer at Arvaia for 7 years now, says his choice to get involved was born out of a search for an alternative model to large-scale distribution. For him, CSA is a system that allows wealth to circulate in the area where he lives instead of giving his money to potentates or multinationals that do not care about the essentials of human and natural environments. Like him, over 300 members are now contributing to the existence of the first Italian CSA.

“Italians like to share, and to do so in the spirit of moms and grandmas of the twentieth-century mold: offering generous portions and not wasting any part of the plants.”
— Lorenzo

In Italy, the solidarity purchasing groups (gruppi d’acquisto solidale - GAS) can be considered the forerunners of CSAs. The GAS were born 30 years ago, precisely in the same region (Emilia Romagna), with the ambition that one could change the world by grocery shopping. This was a grass roots revolution, thanks to the will of thousands of people who decided to network and consciously consume in order to build a better future for the planet. This concept of solidarity guides the choice of products and their producers, whose methods are based on ethical and ecological principles and because they are locally based allow people to meet each other and reduce the pollution and energy waste resulting from the transportation of goods.

In addition to the countless benefits related to justice and food security, these models have the merit of sharply countering a number of important problems that characterize our country, such as agromafie, agri-food crimes, whose turnover would be around 25 billion euros according to the Observatory on Crime in Agriculture, or caporalato, the exploitation of workers, often migrants of foreign origin, of which today there are more than 450,000 in Italy. In a country widely known for its gastronomy, mafias do golden business in the agribusiness sector, and the link between organized crime and the agricultural world is ancient, dating back to the second half of the 19th century. In fact, this sprawling, cross-cutting system starts in the fields and extends to distribution inside and outside national borders.

Perhaps not everyone is yet aware that one's food choices can influence and be intertwined with a series of crimes including the illicit disposal of toxic waste, such as illegal pesticides used in crops, or fraud amounting to millions of euros from European funds intended for agriculture. In this context, the circular, social and inclusive economy, combined with sustainable development policies, can provide solutions; solutions that, however, require skills that go beyond simple, albeit effective, agricultural practices. Skills that are not automatically the preserve of all rural actors. Thus, the steps to implement the technical and economic means to make the transition possible can be slow and cumbersome, as they touch the deepest part of the soul of farmers, their families and their land. But these levers can also bring fresh and creative energies, inspiring innovative and benevolent visions capable of giving the strength to endure.

And although Italy is the leading European country in terms of organic production, there remain many challenges, particularly one related to the problem of the lack of generational succession in agriculture. For a long-term transition to an agro-ecology that succeeds in reversing the process of industrialization of the sector, it is necessary that young people can be supported.