I’d like to share with you this post (and video) found on my Twitter network.
At a certain point, a farmer says ‘we want back our right to keep our seed’. Because the big Ag don’t allow them to do it!
How SCARY!
In Italy, farmers can still keep their seeds.
But for how long?
Herebelow, the original post:

There are 2 million farmers and 300 million consumers in the US. Standing in between are a handful of companies who control how food gets from one side to the other.

In 2010, the USDA and Dept of Justice are holding a series of hearings on this issue — the matter of corporate concentration in food and agriculture. The first hearing was March 12, in Ankeny, Iowa. The night before, about 250 independent family farmers and community activists gathered for a town hall meeting to share their own experiences with big ag.

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Fortunately it doesn’t happen often to be able use this tool with its spikey iron wheels but this is the right time of year. Our land, the Baraggia is harsh and the weather rains heavily. There isn’t any escape and in rice fields with the rubber you can’t get around easily. In this way using this tool is an extreme solution but the only possibilty at this moment, it requires a lot more time and a lot of patience.

This morning in Paris at the head office of Microsoft France Agrycult.com presented itself to the prestigious public!

Our idea to cultivate the agricultural part of the net was one of the 20 ideal finalists of Miniseedcamp of Paris.

We had 5 minutes,five to explain where Argycult wants to arrive and how.

We did it by talking about the sound of cheese.

We explained how the irritating sound of the large copper pot battered by a large stick becomes a solid sound, full of

contents of an excellent contents

And here is where Argrycult wants to aim to colonise always more the particle 2.0 filling up with real contents a really interesting place like the web where now on food there is too much confusion. There is alot of rumour which Agrycult wants to transform in conversation and afterwards  in markets for everyday folk who are on the outside.

To those we will say that more than km zero need the km 2.0……:-)

Is it a crazy undertaking? Will the judges of seedcamp believe in us?

In the last few days I have learnt with a pinch of stupor that a Friulian agriculturist claims the right of freedon to sow asking to be free to cultivate OGM cereals.

During this time we have assisted in a lot of initiatives and theories pro OGM. Often superficial because there is too much speculation over the reality of the fields that are often more complex than most people believe. In the countryside there is such a variability and unpredictable number of events that one can not absolutely understand the certainty that are foreign to this world.

The numerous ‘reassurings’ zones of respect that should separate the cultivation of OGM from the conventional are no more than centres of a genetic vehicle. All the studies that support the pro OGM theories constitute only a small part of the reality.

The life of an agriculturist is made of many rights but also many duties, above all the salvation of one’s territory. For this simple reason first the right to sow comes with the respect for the environment for and for who works there. Unfortunatly for some this is a small insignificant detail, even agriculture doesn’t miss who thinks to be able to cure only their own interests.

The lady in the photo is the face of La Basia. She is my mother Elena.

Originally from a Milanese family, a city where she has lived in total a week. She graduadated in agriculture a few years ago.

From there two stories: The first half is the story of a family that grows and grows: five children ( two girls and three boys), always with her husband Antonio. The second half of the story that is connected to the hills of Garda where they have started to produce their wine with the passion and curiosity to discover the taste and history of a fascinating land rich with flavours. Within this land is full of their roots and with the years even this story grows and follows new roads and new characters. Today it is a little world made of wines and other products ( oil, grappa, honey and polenta) open to the public, animated with the presence of friends that have chosen  La Basia for their passion of horses.

 This will not be easy to introduce ourselves to everybody… We will need time. But a little at a time there will be space for everyone….

 see you soon!

 By now you already know that agrycult.com is a place where we collect the experiences and passions of everyday folk who have chosen with us to cultivate what we have defined the particle 2.0 from an agriculturists part of the net.

 The objective of this is to come together on this website with the community of people who are careful what they eat and curious and open like us folk of agrycult.com.

Here we share our daily work and our passion but… since one doesn’t bring forward a business only by talk

We need to try and sell the thing we produce with passion every day!

In agrycult.com we are constructing our farmer store and in doing so we are inspired by the model called CSA, Community Supported Agryculture: a community that supports..agriculture.

And, yes a certain kind of agriculture, one which doesn’t produce a large amount but produces good quality, LA Italian quality.  Above  all in this moment we are in need of a community that supports this.

Success in the 50′s of Japanese folk who, in order to try to avoid the depopulation of small rural villages of which their children didn’t have any other choice but to flee to the cities invented the CSA.

… and they succeeded!

They opened their campaigns to the inhabitants of the cities near by. Saturday and Sunday were the days they collected and so everyone in the countryside in order to breath fresh air  havested the vegetables neccesary which were needed for the following week. In the USA this model has become successful and today millions of businesses base a large amount of their income on this distributive model.

Agricultural profit  from minimal land….depopulation of the countryside…community… a need to shine and get to know the face of the products….

These are the ingredients that unfortunatly still remain indispensable in order for the survival of quality agriculture.

 These factors are needed in order to eat healthy and with knowledge of what one is eating.

We are working on the first test of our farmer store.

Coming soon will be the first line of WCSA: Web Community Supported Agriculture!!

Today the European union has cleared the potato OGM Amflora but if they thought to amaze us agriculturists by nature they should give up because we don’t belong to their financial logic

 This movement has been expected for some time with the most foolish ready to steal from us, convinced OGM will mean higher margins for agriculture.

These are shocking dellusions because the business of products for agriculturists has no intention to reduce their own admission.

These last few days at the Basia have been intense. A horse riding centre (our riding school)the strings were pulled on the day of the holiday of which last sunday we said goodbye to spring, The jumping contest which had a large number of participants and enthusiastic supporters (photos will be on our website soon), The day ended with victors and winners unfailingly celebrating together.

 In the vineyard our Arturo who we will soon find the occasion to present to you finished the work of binding the grapevines under the hot sun the last few weeks. It was risky work but he managed to get himself a nice tan.

 My mother Elena and I are writing to you to tell you that we returned from Germany a few days ago where for the first time we went to present our wines to the large exhibition at ProWein in Dusseldorf, proud ambassadors of our wine in a foreign land!

 In short: a lot is happening! Try and get us!

See you soon on agrycult.com

Hello everybody I’m Lorenzo, I’m 35 and I’m real truffle picker.

Before starting, I want to say a thank you to Francesco Travaglini, friend and companian on lots of trips who has involved me in http://agrycult.com. This time with the idea to promote homemade and an abundance of products from our own land.

I have spent almost 10 years completely immersed in the world of truffles always accompanied by my faithful dogs that have given me alot of satisfaction over the years.

Since I was a teenager I have coltivated many different passions: for motocycle, from skiing to swimming to a love for nature through living with splendid olive trees in Larino (Molise)Italy. It became a natural consequence that I got into truffle picking.

The satisfaction that I have felt taking on this adventure makes me tell many of my friends about my stories. Their words rich with magic and curiosity have imprisioned me to the point of pushing me, like them the flavours of the forest. I personally go the best places and most hidden in the search of this precious truffle . I respect the seasons, the time of growth of truffles and the best technologies to find and preserve this native truffle to Molise.

From this was born The Perl of Molise.

With my truffle products all the packeging are taken with care with and respect for nature, I invite you to discover the smells and flavours of my earth and thanks to the quality of this land and the excellent climate it produces truffles of a superior quality.

After a few days here at the Basia we have bottled the product the Chiaretto The drunken wife 2009.  The bottleing which took place in an associated business is a special occasion: In fact in one day all the work spent in the vineyard and dedicated care in the wine cellar came to an end.

We would like to tell you about a special day. We have turned ourselves into reporters for Agrycult and we have tried to describe what happened in a video that is to say the air that is breathed from the big plant that carrys out all the operations of packing the bottles. It is in the square in front of the cellar where at the end of the day the doors are closed ( infact at the Basia like in many other small businesses this work is carried out by a specialised company but we are kitted out with all the right industrialised machinery used to package the goods.

The result is under your watchful eyes! we hope you will appreciate this small part of a story of a wine that we like to remember, a wine born from a combination of many factors: from the passion of real people, from the right care of the earth, from the tastes of a tradition which have transmitted us from quality to a fruit but also from the technology that today helps us value and conserve these prescious resourses up until the moment of uncorking a bottle on our table.

At this point even we 2.0 have to return to old habits: if you would like to get to know this wine, this chiaretto there isn’t anything else to do but try it! and it’s for this reason the net is still not set up ….. Come and see us!

See you soon!

Finally!!!!…Michele will say….

Even the Paladino family business looks to agrycult!!!

Hello everyone, my name is Maria Antonietta Paladino the second of three children of Concetta and Antonio Paladino, even if in the last few years people have learnt to know us as Paladino… the family of treccia cheese?!! (fortunatly people have started to get to know us and recognise us.

Our family business has always made the tipical product of my town Santa Croce di Magliano, a metropolis of about five thousand inhabitants situated between the hills of Molise.. For a few years we have opened a small cheese laboratory where mother Casara knowingly transforms milk that father Antonio lovingly collects from his cows every day from 6 a.m to 6 p.m in the evening….

When we participate in food fairs or when for the first time new customers come and see us at our sales point which is found in the countryside, a few metres distance from the cowshed where our cows of Podolica breed are kept. They are brown and speckled red, not more than 20 …. Everyone remains amazed by our product and the first thing I say is ‘the young lady has made a scarf!!!” the sceptics think she isn’t real… some ask me if they can touch her to make sure she isn’t made of plastic!!!….

Have I made you quite curious???

….I think it’s now time to talk to you about treccia cheese which is our forte. It comes from our very own laboratory; the technical definition says that the tipical treccia cheese is stringy in texture.  It  has the aspect of a white intertwined ribbon during preparation that transforms into a yellowish tone after a day or so.

I, however am going to tell you that treccia cheese is for sure one of the most special stringy cheeses that exists and for sure one of those products that one cannot learn to make in a day!!!

My mother started weaving treccia cheese watching her grandfather and her grandfather following his father and that’s how it began… I started not long ago working these weaves of stringy cheese thanks to my mother but to become good like her there are still many strings to weave!!!

Treccia cheese can be all dimensions of a few gramms in weight to a few kilograms… the biggest we have made weighed more than 10 kilograms and can be enjoyed fresh or appasita… I prefer appassita… but the real conseureurs have confermed to us that it is excellent both ways infact in october we participated in a competion called La Grolla D’oro in Valle d’ Aosta and in the stringy cheese category we won both prizes for fresh treccia cheese and passita treccia cheese!!!

Another special way to enjoy treccia cheese.. don’t forget ever to break it up as cheese tasters say it helps to bring out the organoleptic flavours of the product and I will assure you that you will taste the pure air  our cows breathe… the freshness of the grass they feed on and the geniuneness of the milk they produce….!!!

Well, what do you say? Are you ready to try the typical product of the Paladino family business?????!!!!!

The Paladino family business. Who? The family who make treccia cheese?