Healthy, local, organic products with sustainable packaging, from fair-trade supply chains: over the past two years, according to an international study commissioned by Sial, the International Food Exhibition held biennially in France, 62 Italians out of 100 have changed the way they do their food shopping, favouring products that meet these characteristics. In particular, three Italians out of four have adopted a healthier diet, 65 per cent have purchased local and regional food, 45 per cent have checked the ingredients list and opted for organic products, 40 per cent have chosen recyclable packaging, and 47 per cent have preferred food from an ethical supply chain.

Shopping with this heightened awareness, Italians have noticed a greater commitment from food companies to improving the traceability and transparency of products, while consumers feel that much remains to be done on the reduction of air and water pollution (91 per cent consider it a priority, and of these, 39 per cent think what has been done is wholly inadequate), on the protection of biodiversity (important to 90 per cent of consumers, and for which, according to one in three, not enough has been done) and on fair pay for farmers (92 per cent believe they should receive more adequate pay, and among these, 44 per cent believe no effort whatsoever has been made towards this goal).

Fair pay: from a long supply chain to a short one

On this last point, one of the core issues is the number of intermediaries in the fruit and vegetable supply chain between farmer and consumer, which leaves small producers vulnerable to the logic of national distribution: the price at which they manage to sell fruit and vegetables on the open market often barely covers the costs of fieldwork. What are the solutions, then, to guarantee fair pay in agriculture? Shortening the supply chain is certainly one of them. Some of the farmers who have joined Biorfarm explain how — Biorfarm being the first digital farming community through which you can adopt a tree, supporting small growers and receiving organic products directly from the farmer at home.

From producer to consumer (and then precision farming and valorisation of waste)

Giuseppe Tringali, 29, together with his girlfriend Francesca, represents the new generation at the helm of the Azienda agricola biologica Leone in Noto (Sr), which, with a long history behind it, today cultivates citrus fruits, olive trees, almond trees, carob trees and ancient wheat varieties. "I have a background in IT, but ever since I took part in the first almond harvest five years ago, I haven't left the countryside," he says. Once he started working on the farm, Giuseppe immediately realised there was a problem: "With oranges, for example, we were forced to accept a selling price that barely covered our costs because we had no alternative way to bring our products to market." An alternative did eventually present itself, in the form of Biorfarm: "If before my oranges were being bought at 35 cents per kilo, with Biorfarm I can offer them directly to the consumer at 1 euro plus VAT per kilo, allowing me to give fair pay to the workforce handling the harvesting and packaging and earn a little more for the farm." Giuseppe is clear about what he believes: "Fair pay has to be fair for everyone: the consumer must be guaranteed product quality. For Biorfarm we harvest the oranges in April, when they are at the right degree of ripeness and nicely sweet." In the first year, 2019, Azienda agricola Leone sold 5,000 kg of oranges on Biorfarm; in the second year, 10,000; for 2021, 15,000 kilos are forecast: "The older generation in the business was sceptical when we proposed joining Biorfarm, but then the numbers proved us right. It's a sustainable project."

For Giuseppe, alongside the choice of a short supply chain, there are other routes to guaranteeing fair pay for farmers: "You have to invest in precision farming where possible, to mechanise certain operations, for example. And then you can open up a conversation about what waste actually is: in the early 1980s, lemons in Sicily were only paid 10 cents per kilo, with 5 cents deducted for citrus fruits that were the wrong size or had blemishes. Producers at the time preferred to crush them rather than sell them at a loss. Today, produce that doesn't meet standard dimensions or has a few marks on the skin is still considered waste, but especially in organic farming, this is perfectly good fruit and vegetables that there is no sense in discarding." True waste, on the other hand, can be reused through a circular economy approach: "We have plans for a processing facility to transform raw materials into juices and jams, and then, who knows, perhaps into a line of cosmetics."

Fair pay that promotes biodiversity (and vice versa)

Giovanni Zappavigna, 42, who works in software development, found himself suddenly having to manage the family business in 2007: the Azienda agricola biologica Arangara di Ardore (Rc), whose hectares are home mainly to citrus groves and olive groves cultivated organically. "My father had passed on a great deal of passion to me, but also a great many difficulties. Chief among them was the price I managed to get for my products, which made the business barely profitable. I couldn't negotiate; I had to adapt — not to mention the competition from varieties coming from abroad at prices I couldn't match even if I cut out my own profit." The first choice Giovanni made was to focus on biodiversity: "With the help of an agronomist, I recovered native varieties from my territory — a very particular area where the fiumare, formed by intense and short-lived rainfall, have given rise to valleys separated from one another, each with its own biodiversity, despite being just a few kilometres apart." The farm began cultivating citrus fruits such as the bionda orange, which is very sweet, bergamot, zagara bianca lemon, common mandarin, which is very sweet and full of seeds, and the oliva minuta, small and with a low oil yield, but capable of producing a highly refined product.
Giovanni's second attempt was to shorten the supply chain, an attempt that succeeded thanks to Biorfarm: "With Biorfarm I managed to obtain fair remuneration for my work. Before, the lemons I sold at 35–45 cents per kilo ended up on the market at 2–4 euros per kilo depending on the season; now with Biorfarm I can offer them directly to the consumer at 90 cents–1 euro per kilo."

"Of course I need to be able to offer a product that is different from what you can find in a supermarket," Giovanni continues, "and I need to bring added value even when I'm competing with short supply chain and organic products that cost less due to their production conditions. I think of the difference between olive trees in Puglia, which are on flat land and allow for mechanised harvesting, and those in my area, which require hand-picking and don't yield the same quantities. In this sense, Biorfarm also allows me to tell the story behind my product, to explain why it has a certain price, to make clear that the yellow lemon isn't the only option — that in summer you can go for the green, fresh, Italian, organic one, which you might prefer to a foreign lemon with a shiny yellow skin because it's been treated." Giovanni too, finally, has transformed waste from a cost into a source of income at his farm, using it as fertiliser or extracting active compounds from it to use in producing a luxury cosmetics line.