5754_ECCS_elia_cammarata

BCFN Young Earth Solutions YES! ACCHIAPPASOGNI: youth social vegetable garden Abstract: The project has its origin in a group of young people having a common dream: reconnect our generation to the "Mother Nature", the only one who can offer us vital energy. This project, which started two years ago, has been involving students and young workers from all over Northern Italy during "social working days". The growing of fruit and vegetables is based on organic and environmentally friendly agriculture. Such a method contemplates the respect of the natural rhythms of the earth, the use of composting and the rivalry among natural predators and parasitical pathogens. Our "social" project comes from awareness and desire to change a society devoted to commercialize everything: food, earth, even ourselves. We have chosen the practice to invite customers to do their shopping directly in the garden, so that they have the opportunity to choose and pick up the products they want. A way to knock down the supply chain and to make customers conscious about the energy contained in a healthy and wholesome product, grown by young people who socially reinvest in the earth.

Author

Elia Camarrata

ACCHIAPPASOGNI: youth social vegetable garden

We are what we eat: therefore it is essential to consume good, natural and fair foods.

However today the problem is that gathering good, natural and fair foods is not a right that is affordable to everyone, although it should be.

Tasty foods belong to the traditions and enhances the area in which they are produced, but even in Italy, home country of the local food, this idea is failing.

Natural foods are produced using eco-friendly, agricultural methods, while today the majority of the firms use methods of intensive agriculture.

Fair foods guarantee a fair compensation and therefore move along the market with respect towards the work involved, as compared with the underpaid and temporary employment.

Besides, it is the earth that gives birth to the food products that we consume and most part of the economic activities are based on agriculture. However, young people don’t choose the green sector, but always other fields (in Italy the youth employment in the agricultural sector is decreasing). Besides both young people and adults know less and less about the world of the farming products. In this way, the basic concepts of seasonality of the products and of typical geographical area of production, strictly related to the native varieties, get lost (in our specific case, the geografical area under investigation is the North of Italy, one of the five most polluted areas on the earth).

On the top of that, in Italy there are no social projects that are based on the entrepreneurship that is self-made and self-managed by young people, that work on the concept of sharing and of solidarity within the farming sector.

Therefore we present our project: a youth social vegetable garden. This idea was born with the shared dream of a small group of young people that believes in the necessity of connecting their generation again with the “Mother Earth”, to get possession again of the “good foods”, following the entire production process, from the seeds to the fruits.

The projects has already started in Brescia and this is its second year. It succeeded to involve students and young workers from different parts of Italy, not only from the North.

During the working days, the young people share social moments in the vegetable garden, learning the traditional information and tastes regarding the farming of the earth.

The vegetable production is based on the organic and eco-friendly agricultural methods: respect towards the natural rhythms of the earth, use of the compost produced with the agricultural waste products, valorisation of the antagonism between the predators that are in nature and the pathogenic parasites. The irrigation is implemented with a technique of “drop by drop” per supply microcapacity, in order to guarantee a 90% efficency, reducing the losses; the water that is used comes from the rain and from a spring, all channelled into a tank. The pollination is guaranteed “natural”, due to the closeness of 27 beehives, insects that are called pollinators and carry on a cross pollination of all essences. Besides the choice of the seeds intends to rediscover ancient local varieties, that every year are reproduced and preserved for the next season.

The project aims at the sale on and in the field, with the objective of reconducting the client to have a direct relationship with the producer: therefore we offer the “shopping in the field”. The consumer is given the chance to choose and pick the foods with his bare hands, becoming part of the good, natural and fair foods supply chain, because he experiences this in person.

Besides the possibility offered to the client to do his shopping directly in the vegetable garden, is a way to get to know the place in which the food is produced that he will consume later on: on a hill in the outskirts of Brescia, neighbouring with the forest, where there is neither water pollution nor soil pollution. The picking directly in the field also guarantees to reduce wastages, because the client only picks the chosen quantity.

During the last year, we welcomed a loto f people that were interested both in our philosophy towards the earth, and in the genuine and nice interpersonal relationships that are built during this experience (we are talking both about the young workers and the clients).

Besides we propose the social vegetable garden as a meeting place to build new relationships through events regarding foods created in an open space among the vegetables, like a ”dinner among the rows” where the clients sit to enjoy, directly from the earth to the table, the garden products cooked by our young workers.

The social vegetable garden and its young workers have been guests of the local events hosted by Slow Food and by the City of Brescia,, in cooperation with the agricultural markets of the Italian organization Coldiretti. During the event “Franciacorta in fiore” we

have promoted an awareness campaign about the environment, realizing a laboratory for children of vegetables transplanting and seeding.

We are also trying to present our concept in the schools and in the centres for disabled children; both of them have visited us on the field.

We have succeeded to build cooperations at International levels: a twinning with a vegetable garden in Burkina Faso, in the Sahel region, within the Dudal Jam project. This is a strong message of hope!

As far as the communication media are concerned, the following newspapers talked about our project: The Il Corriere della Sera (22th April 2012, dorso Brescia), The Il Giorno (8th June 2012), The Il Giornale di Brescia (20th March 2012).

We are a group of young people between 16 and 27 years that in a period of crisis and unemployment, really wants to be a change in the world, calling for the young people to rediscover agriculture as a means to connect with the earth.

.Â