To discover the benefits of organic honey for health and the environment, Alce Nero took us to the Parco delle api di Conapi. It's the first stop on the Campi da sapere tour.
Bees as a bulwark against chemical and industrial agriculture. Organic honey as an expression of a production method that respects nature's rhythms and characteristics, safeguards the wellbeing of bees and the plants they forage on, and therefore biodiversity. At the Parco delle api e del miele of Conapi (Consorzio nazionale apicoltori) in Bisano di Monterenzio, in the province of Bologna, all of this was discussed alongside the health benefits of honey.
The event held on 21 June is the first stop on the Campi da sapere journey by Alce Nero, the brand of more than a thousand farmers and beekeepers who have been producing organic food for over thirty years. The initiative invites people directly into the fields to meet the producers: the event at the Parco delle api opened with a lesson exploring these extraordinarily sophisticated creatures, followed by a meeting with one of Conapi's 600 beekeepers — the largest honey producers' cooperative in Europe and a co-founder of Alce Nero. The aim is to spread awareness of the relationship between natural food and health, thanks in part to the presence of Alce Nero president Lucio Cavazzoni, Conapi president Diego Pagani, and Dr Franco Berrino, epidemiologist at the Istituto dei tumori di Milan.
Berrino explained that honey is an ancient sweetener and preferable to sugar. He spoke about its health-giving properties and how it should be consumed to gain the most benefit from it. And it is precisely the point of contact between people and food that lies at the heart of the Campi da sapere project.
"There is a parallel between food, agriculture and the environment. They are practically the same thing," says Cavazzoni. Industrial agriculture does away with farmers and, increasingly, with the land itself. The soil is impoverished — for example, glyphosate is the foremost desiccant of the earth — and biodiversity is threatened by the killing of pollinating insects such as bees through the use of pesticides like neonicotinoids. The processes used to refine food are aimed at reducing its cost and extending its shelf life: these strip food of its nutrients and vital elements and have, over the years, given rise to conditions that did not exist before the advent of industrial agriculture, "that is," explains Berrino, "when all crops were organic."
The vision that Campi da sapere seeks to spread is one of an agriculture that is not merely organic — according to Cavazzoni, that is only the starting point — but one that recovers the ancient forms of foodstuffs that have been hybridised and transformed by industry while, at the same time, creating modern variants capable of meeting today's needs. An alternative to industrial farming that demonstrates it is possible to work the land while protecting it. To bring people closer to this concept, Alce Nero, together with Dr Berrino and his association La Grande Via, has devised a journey divided into five stops across Italy, concluding in June 2017. The next appointment is on 17 July, with a meeting in the Grosseto area to discover 170 hectares of organic peach and apricot orchards. Then, in October, the centuries-old olive trees of Puglia will take centre stage at Campi da sapere.
The spring of 2016 was a difficult season for Italian honey due to the high level of rainfall, explained beekeeper Valentina Pallotti. And it is precisely in the context of this challenging year that one comes to appreciate the opportunity to better understand the work of beekeepers and the importance of bees, not only in giving us a good and beneficial product, but also in maintaining the variety of flowers and plants that characterises our territory. At the Parco delle api in Bisano di Monterenzio, visitors discovered how the production of organic honey contributes to the virtuous circle of nature. To sow the foundations of a natural agriculture no longer as an alternative to industrial farming, but as the primary point of contact between food and those who enjoy it.
