Organic fruit isn't just sweet and juicy — it's good for people and the planet. Like the fruit grown by La Cesenate in Tuscany, where Alce Nero took us for the second stop of Campi da sapere.
Beneath the summer sun of the Tuscan countryside, the canopies of thousands of apricot, peach, pear and apple trees, and tomato plants are caressed by the sea breeze. Dr Franco Berrino, physician and epidemiologist, sings the praises of these plants: "Fruit is the triumph of this season."
We are in the province of Grosseto, less than 30 kilometres from the Tyrrhenian coast. Here, La Cesenate Conserve Alimentari, founded in 1949, cultivates 160 hectares of volcanic soil — rich in potassium, iron and phosphorus — following the principles of organic farming for more than fifteen years.
There are 1,660 farmers, beekeepers and organic processors who are part of Alce Nero. The Campi da sapere initiative takes people directly to where its food is produced. After the first stop held on 21 June at the Parco delle api di Conapi (Consorzio nazionale di apicoltori), the second took place at the Società agricola il Selvello de La Cesenate on 17 July. The fruit and vegetables grown here and on La Cesenate's land in Emilia Romagna (600 hectares in total) are used in Alce Nero products such as juices, nectars and purées, as well as soups, pestos and patés.
Alce Nero has been committed to organic farming for more than 30 years, with a focus on offering "a plant-based product that retains the properties that existed before modern agriculture," which is responsible for having altered foods and their most intrinsic nutritional qualities, explains president Lucio Cavazzoni. He adds: "Working without additives is a commandment for us."
Campi da sapere promotes the idea that farming must be organic not only to create a high-quality product, but also one that is good for health. This was the subject addressed by Dr Berrino, former head of the Department of Preventive and Predictive Medicine at the Istituto nazionale dei tumori in Milan. "Rich in antioxidants, fruit protects against cancer," he explained, specifying that to reap the benefits it is better to eat a variety of whatever is in season.
It is also important that fruit be organic, not only because it benefits people's health — for example, studies show that it contains more polyphenols and potassium than non-organic fruit — but also the health of the planet. "Non-organic products may cost less, but they leave an outstanding bill with the earth: even if organic products cost more, once you buy them the circle is complete," commented chef Simone Salvini, also an advocate of an approach that combines the pleasure of eating with the safeguarding of people's wellbeing and the environment.
Growing organically is also advantageous from an economic standpoint, argues Arturo Santini, an agronomist described as "among the most attentive in Europe" by Cavazzoni, president of La Cesenate and vice-president of Alce Nero. "With its very mountainous terrain and few plains, it is not easy to practise conventional farming in Italy that keeps pace with the rest of the world. So organic farming is certainly a response for farmers from a financial point of view as well." The country has an advantage in adopting an agricultural model based on nature, variety and seasonality: "It is a territory stretching more than a thousand kilometres from north to south, so even from a pedoclimatic point of view it lends itself to producing different things in very different places, and therefore to not having a standardisation of production."
Santini explains how the company has been able to make the most of this diversity of territories. "From the very beginning, we sought out those situations — above all in terms of climate and soil — and planted those species and varieties of fruit that lent themselves to organic farming." In this sense, La Cesenate was a pioneer, as was Alce Nero, with whom it has collaborated since 2004, having embarked on the path of organic farming at the end of the 1980s — that is, before the European organic farming law came into force in 1991.
Across the expanses of trees belonging to the agricultural company il Selvello — where we also find a replanted woodland and a rainwater collection tank — the cycles of nature and the properties of its fruits are respected, in a circle that closes on itself, complete both from an environmental and a nutritional standpoint. But the circle is also expanding, because organic farming is in constant evolution, as are the techniques and technologies it employs. The relationship between people and nature is therefore becoming less and less one-directional — where the environment is exploited to sustain the rhythms of modernity — and increasingly circular, where the benefits are mutual. Because farming done properly is the link that connects us to the world around us, in a symbiosis where nothing is missing and nothing is in excess.
