The island of Sicily is generating buzz about growing grains using traditional methods.
Farmers are returning to cultivate “ancient grains” as they call them. This is to recover the ancient wisdom that are known to feed the island and throughout Italy since ancient times.
Giuseppe Li Rosi is the President of Simenza, an organization that brings together 70 producers and 100 more are expected to join in the short term. The Sicilian farmer explained that he doesn’t need to use chemicals and to give the necessary time to the different species to develop their full potential. The crop rotation and association are the keys to that in just four years to increase production to the point of overcoming system performance monoculture transgenic seeds and fumigated with chemicals harmful to health.
This initiative is recovering the biodiversity in Sicily and is a new revival of agriculture as part of the need to provide safe and nutritious food. The economic revival of the area is another reason of enthusiasm for increasing the number of people that are turning to natural is greater.
Agricultural laws favoring international consortia and in many cases even prohibits the exchange of seeds among farmers. That is something against which they are fighting and everything indicates that they will win.
