Urban gardens, online gardens with ‘digital participation’ in life in the fields and home delivery of produce. Three brilliant initiatives show how #sognidortos can really come true. Thanks to an alliance between peasant agriculture and ConsumAtors attentive to the authentic value of food. Without neglecting the premise.
Does the farmer’s food always taste better?
Is it really better, the farmer’s food? It depends. The ‘km0’ has one certain advantage, the reduction of transportation and its environmental impact. And the human relationship weighs well on the scale. But it is not enough. Proof of this is the success–relatively modest, compared to the huge investments–of Campagna amica. What is missing then? First, demonstration of the actual sustainability of agronomic practices, which is by no means a given.
Farmer’s food has a recognizable and appreciated value when it is organic. Since this is the only identity guarantee of what the ConsumActor recognizes as ‘good and healthy.’ Good for the ecosystem and biodiversity, of which the ‘organic’ farmer is and guardian. And healthy, thanks to the substantial absence of residues of chemicals whose dangers to public health are emerging with increasing evidence.
Thus, local and eco-logical peasant agriculture can assume a key role in establishing a new social pact with consumers who are guaranteed ‘good and healthy’ products. A basic guarantee is inherent in organic certification and related controls. And it is no coincidence that Coldiretti itself, the mother of Campagna amica, recently signed an agreement with Federbio.
The pact between farmers and consumAtors can be strengthened with additional forms of sharing. From consumers’ physical presence on farms-thanks to initiatives such as those promoted by #Vazapp! – to their ‘digital participation’. Which can be realized with various innovative tools, from the
blockchain
to the installation of video cameras that allow everyone to observe fields and workshops, savoring nature through a smartphone when one does not have the opportunity to make ‘out of town’ visits.
Shortening the supply chain-from the fields to consumers’ homes, or to Solidarity Purchasing Groups (SHGs ), according to tradition-can benefit farmers, who are no longer forced to ‘sell off’ their produce and process (or send to animals) the less ‘beautiful’ fruit and vegetables. But even this should not be abused, as consumers themselves must benefit. Not only idealistic, but also economic. And the large-scale retail sector in turn is organizing ‘organic’ supply chains that are inevitably less ‘fair’ but tend to approach affordable. Pricing must therefore also consider this aspect, in order to balance the authentic value of local eco-agriculture products with the spending needs of a non-elitist audience that needs to be able to be addressed.
Online vegetable gardens, a model of sustainable innovation
‘Online’ gardens can be a model of sustainable and shared innovation in territories. They can stimulate domestic demand for local products, boost the district economy and generate employment. As well as protecting rural areas from abandonment, pollution and concrete. Perhaps even laying the groundwork for widespread tourism in areas otherwise prone to social desertification. The ‘green economy,’ often preached in idle talk at conferences of high institutions, thus finds concrete application. Developing new business models – including cooperative and social – to produce ‘with new eyes’ good and fair foods and reinvent the local ‘food & drink‘ market.
The ecommerce of global giants-which also reaps acclaim among Italian SMEs-does not seem to be the most appropriate context for this. (1) Amazon, with its recent investment in Deliveroo, will undoubtedly optimize logistics with timely and widespread distribution, starting in large cities. But its business model is totally inequitable therefore incompatible with the concept-base of a fair supply chain. Tax evasion is compounded by worker exploitation andopacity of consumer information.
The local economy does not need to bow to the contractual and economic harassment of global ecommerce. Nor to give away disproportionate commissions, up to 20 percent, for a ‘marketplace‘ service that online gardens do not even need. Their visibility can be promoted at far less cost by also relying on physical resources in the territories and word of mouth. And digitization can also be achieved with the help of freelance computer scientists and ‘open-source‘ software. Perhaps organizing in a network to share the costs of sustainable innovation, or relying on a local marketplace that is not as greedy as the giants. This is the only way to maintain reasonable prices for consumers without giving up their deserved share of value.
Garden Chef, Korto, Biofarm. Three experiences of online vegetable gardens
The online vegetable garden model has been developed with various initiatives, the variety of which confirms that imagination has no limits when based on good ideas. Not always ‘organic’-as we most like it, as an emblem of the utmost respect for nature and its inhabitants-but still interesting. All based on a direct sales scheme, from producer to consumer. The first two examples, in and around Turin, hark back to the pre-Renaissance idea of taming the land surrounding cities to meet the food demands of villages and communes. When global, national or regional markets were still lacking, each municipality had its own reservoir of fruit and vegetable production. Why give it up now?
Garden Chef. Former computer scientist Davide Almondo launched an urban horticulture project in 2014 in some of the city of Turin’s public domain gardens. Awards of merit from former mayor Piero Fassino and Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini spurred Davide to start an even more ambitious project, Garden Chef, in the same year. The idea is to cultivate some peri-urban land to produce a quality food for catering. The idea of a kitchen using raw materials from its own garden is new to a metropolis like Turin and is being developed with two city restaurants. One of which is the roof garden-more precisely, a bioclimatic greenhouse-at the Sanpaolo skyscraper, 150 meters above ground. Dizzying innovation, of symbolic value to the metropolitan ‘green‘ vanguard, if also of insignificant social impact.
Korto. David himself puts his urban horticultural experience to good use for a project instead dedicated to families in the city, Korto. Fruits and vegetables are grown on several hectares of land in the grounds of the Royal Palace of Venaria Reale and in Chivasso, province. A box of fruit and vegetables produced a few miles from home is delivered weekly at a good price to subscribing families. Citizens’ ‘digital participation’ is facilitated by webcams on the fields, thanks to which it is possible to follow plant growth, agricultural activities, and environmental care. The service is now temporarily suspended as processing plants for some foods are being developed. And more news, yet to be revealed.
Biofarm
is a larger project that aspires to establish a direct relationship between consumers and farmers applying the organic method in different regions of Italy. The relationship can even be established with Ie individual plants, which can be ‘adopted’. With a view to sharing, albeit ‘remotely, the cycles of nature and the enterprise of agriculture. Initial costs, maintenance, yields and risks, seasonality. It changes the perspective of the consumAtor who can thus learn the meaning of his needs. The self-centeredness of ‘wanting’ this or that product is declined into a transparent – albeit technology-mediated – relationship with nature and its fruits. How long does the plant live, what does it need, when can I harvest the crops, with whom do I share this resource?
Dario Dongo and Guido Cortese
Notes
(1) On 7.5.19 Amazon also signed an agreement with ICE, to promote ‘Made in Italy‘ abroad (see https://www.ice.it/it/amazon). But under what conditions? The Antitrust Authority, which we have repeatedly asked to assess the manifestly unfair and outlawed business practices applied by the U.S. giant to its suppliers, has so far failed to consider vexatious clauses that unfairly harm thousands of Italian businesses. Thus, to the national economy. See previous articles https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/amazon-cyber-bullismo, https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/consum-attori/amazon-nuove-denunce-a-antitrust-e-icqrf
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Computer scientist and professional beekeeper. A former conscientious objector, he served and then volunteered in a canteen for the homeless in Turin. He deals with the right to food, food policy, food sovereignty and biodiversity. He founded the association of Metropolitan Pollinators with the aim of defending biodiversity through specific projects of social and environmental regeneration. He represents the Slow Food Community of Metropolitan Pollinators. He promoted the birth of the national network of urban beekeepers. He directs an independent agricultural market, collaborates and writes for Egalitè (Onlus Rome) which deals with defending the rights of disadvantaged people, and with the newspapers Great ItalianFood Trade, Qualiformaggio, L'apicoltore Italiano and minor magazines.
