30/01/2024
I have been working with heritage wheat farmers and small cooperatives for 8 years now, the situation in Italy for organic farmers is as unstable as it is in France just probably worse, coming to the market now with an organic product is harder than going to war.
Some of the farmers we work with haven't been paid for years on end. Little by little we have helped them by getting involved in the importing of grain to the UK, but it has not been easy. In fact I have not been paid once, because at times my cut was what made a difference between them getting their price or not.
The European Union has been starving farmers for years. No one cares that they battle climate change, in Italy they fight the wild boars and deer too, in the end of the day they aren't even getting the basic fuel allowance or the subsidies they are owed, in truth some depend on those because they simply do not make any profit once all the costs are added per hectare of land.
The green revolution was seen as an amazing success, but in truth it has destroyed all traditional farming, destroying amazing amount of landraces and patrimony. In the UK at best we talk about soil health, farming has to have the right to change back into a sustainable practice.
Considering that one farmer on a tractor does the work of 50 people at least, it is unbelievable we have got to a point that even he can no longer make a living, if French farmers think they have it bad, they should try to live in the Apennines instead, people pay to farm there.
What it means to the end consumer is that, he can no longer have any real food, he has never known the taste of real bread or pasta, he does not know what real cheese tastes like, or a real tomato.
A few years ago I wanted to create a resturant that delivers the real taste of everything because having tasted a cup of coffee directly from the plantation has changed me for ever. Imagine a word that you have to create a museum for the real tastes of food, that landraces (a variety that was grown by peasant farmers for 1000 years) are only grown by custodians.
The funny thing is, that its the actual situation.
For me the solution was always taste, it explodes in your mouth, and suddenly you realise that you have always been lied to, that you never tasted a real olive oil, a wine, a coffee. My personal best is pasta, I let my Italian guests sit around my table, and I say "you are about to taste the best pasta ever", they laugh, but only before they taste it. The ancient grains do the work.
However it has become impossible to ever have enough land to farm, and it has been almost impossible to farm even if you inherited the land. You can not any longer just grow food without paying someone, or being restricted by endless paperwork.
I sit with some of my neighbours in Italy, and they always say "next year I am going to farm nothing", every year I convince them to go on for one more year, and it is emotional when we drill wheat, but I make money elsewhere, and I always feel like I am lying to them, I even make sure I loose money with them every year, because I find it hard to live amongst them otherwise.
The UK, France, and elsewhere are all suffering from the same problem. Any farmer can grow better food if they were allowed, so it is about time they went for war. It is probably the only war we should be fighting right now, all the others happen because farmers have accepted being serfs for 10,000 years while someone else makes money on their surplus.
France taken by surprise by scale and fury of grassroots demonstrations amid crisis in organic sector
