Italy Archives - Agricultural and Rural Convention

Italy | A Love Letter From The Farm

July 17, 2026 Chiara Garini

After eight beautiful, mucky, frustrating, biodiversity-filled and fulfilling years of giving voice to farmers—for who better to narrate the highs and lows of life on the farm?—the much-loved “Letters From The Farm” series is drawing to a close. And so we invite the doyenne of the series, our very first contributor, to guide us into a series of closing reflections. Welcome back to Chiara Garini’s forest garden at the foot of the Italian Alps. […]

A Taste of Community Breeding in Italy

July 16, 2026 Adèle Pautrat

While developing seeds suited to the specific conditions of organic farming still faces significant challenges, multi-stakeholder breeding systems are proving effective in steering research towards greater diversity. Among them, the participatory approach branches out into numerous projects and living labs across Europe, aiming to create new varieties tailored to local needs. Reporting from an experimental field day in Italy, Seeds4All project coordinator Adèle Pautrat explores the concept of participatory plant breeding, while agronomist Michael Daddio shares his inspiring thoughts on breeding as a tool to empower communities. By Adèle Pautrat and Michael Daddio […]

What happens when our seeds go silent?

June 16, 2026 Natasha Foote

As EU lawmakers prepare to rewrite rules governing the production, exchange and sale of seeds, two opposing worlds collide. In one, seeds are intellectual property, carefully regulated and protected as engines of innovation. In the other, they are living commons, saved, exchanged and adapted by farmers across generations. To dig into the seedy underbelly of the agrifood world, ARC2020’s Natasha Foote travelled between two major seed gatherings held just days (but worlds) apart, each offering a radically different vision of the future. […]

Italy | The Fruits of Unseen Labour

March 6, 2026 Lana Chaduneli

What if we acknowledged the labour embedded in every plate of food we eat, in every glass of wine? Forum Synergies trainee Lana Chaduneli spent a rich two weeks in mentorship with pioneering winemaker Charlotte Horton at Castello di Potentino in Tuscany in autumn 2025, where she learned how agriculture, culture and intellectual life need not be separated, but can instead be mutually enriching. By Lana Chaduneli. […]

Letter From The Farm | Seven Years In: Realising Our Agroecological Vision

April 11, 2025 Chiara Garini

We are back after a long time on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Seven years ago, Chiara and her partner started from scratch with a lot of dreams. Now they have a fully operational farm business. While proud of realising their vision, rather than resting on their laurels, they are now looking to sustain the necessary growth. […]

Letter From A Future Farmer | Living Alternatives

March 28, 2025 Jessica Girardi

Can principles of local action, mutual aid and intergenerational cohesion help to revive rural areas? Jessica Girardi immersed herself in this question during a month-long Forum Synergies scholarship hosted by the Porto di Terra collective in Sicily in August-September 2024. She found living proof that rural areas can be dynamic, progressive and experimental. Letter by Jessica Girardi. […]

Survey Shows Huge Support for Nature Restoration Law in Blocking Member States

May 16, 2024 ARC

EU Member States not supporting the Nature Restoration Law are doing so against the wishes of their own citizens. That’s according to a new survey of over 6000 people in a poll conducted in the Netherlands, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Sweden, all of which are blocking the Nature Restoration Law. […]

Letter From The Farm | Wandering In Quest Of Balance

September 15, 2023 Chiara Garini

We’re back on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the forest garden is in beautiful shape in its fifth mushroom season. Running the farm is a constant balancing act. It’s the satisfaction of producing food that keeps Chiara going. Don’t miss our policy explainer at the end of this letter, where we examine the policy constraints that prevent Chiara and other small-scale farmers from diversifying their activites. […]

Letter From The Farm | Cresting the Peaks of Constant Change

June 10, 2022 Chiara Garini

We’re back at the foot of the Italian Alps, where Chiara Garini is growing like the shiitake mushrooms on her forest farm. Given our precarious, hyperconnected and crisis-stricken planet, Chiara is sticking with the realism of making and maintaining –food and employment, forest and qualify of life– over the idealism of saving the world. The farm is growing too, and the long-awaited renovation of an old building is helping the now-expanded team to diversify activities. […]

Down to the Ground – Green Medicine for the People!

February 10, 2022 Ursula Billington

Health is a human right, not a privilege. Herbalists Without Borders work to deliver health justice to displaced and disadvantaged people via the powerful medium of herbs. Through valuing indigenous healing wisdom, producing medicine from plants gives vulnerable people a renewed sense of control over their environment and personal health. Herbalism also fosters a renewed connection to the landscape from which everyone can benefit. Ursula Billington has more. […]

Letter From The Farm | The Slower Path To Paradigm Change

November 5, 2021 Chiara Garini

We’re back on Chiara Garini’s farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. After her ambitious plans to open an on-farm restaurant, Chiara reflects on the benefits of taking the slower path to paradigm change. Paradoxically this setback serves well her overall vision of agri-food systems as the farm continues to reap the benefits of diversification. Meanwhile in local politics, divisive narratives around farming have led to a disappointing development, leaving Chiara more convinced than ever that agroecology is the way forward. […]

Pesticide Poisonings – Numbers Revised Upwards Globally

May 5, 2021 ARC

15 times more pesticide poisonings occur annually now than 30 years ago. About 385 million cases of acute unintentional pesticide poisoning occur each year, according to a new systematic review on global pesticide poisoning. This is up from 25 million annually in 1990, the last year such an estimate was made. Here Justice Pesticides outlines key findings of that review, as well as a study on pesticide contamination near intensively managed agricultural areas in South Tyrol, Italy. […]

Letter From The Farm | Three Years In: Realism And Planning For Utopia

March 5, 2021 Chiara Garini

We are back on Chiara Garini’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps. Three years in, her mushroom farm and forest garden is at a crossroads: should she expand or diversify? In any case Chiara is determined to bring utopia into her business plan, and tells us about an exciting new development on the farm… […]

Letter From The Farm | Grateful For Invisible Friends

November 6, 2020 Chiara Garini

We’re back on Chiara’s forest farm at the foot of the Italian Alps, where there’s much to be grateful for. Chiara updates us on an abundant shiitake harvest, her mushroom business going wild, and finding solace in fungi as “invisible friends”. […]

Italy – Digitalisation, Diverse Farms and Rural Resilience

July 30, 2020 Matteo Metta

Digital tools that suit the complexity of diversified farms and meet their specific needs, can bring new challenges but, once these are overcome, they can contribute to farm resilience and viability. Meet two Italian farm enterprises and see how their stories and narratives show that digitalisation means not only access to connectivity, but also capacity to use, manage and control technologies. […]