We happened to meet Ignazio Canesso maybe a decade ago. The opportunity stems from the cross between his first book “I remember... Thoughts of Nonno” and our publication of “Agricultural Catechism for the Use of Peasants”, 1869, by D. Gio. Cav. Rizzo, pastor of Salboro. Two very different things in terms of intent, but where do you understand how Ignatius's memories, rhymed as he knows how to do, are similar to the agricultural practices and daily life of the mid-19th century. But immediately there are continuous opportunities for collaboration, of an even different nature: at that time I had injured myself cutting wood at home and I was in serious difficulty because of the many spring jobs to do, and here comes Ignazio as a tireless and passionate worker! Since then he has been part of the family for us even if now the most delicate and significant jobs are reserved for him, such as pruning, transplants, manual sowing of cereals, the use of the sickle, the tamping of corn, etc. etc. The memory of reciting an entire passage from the Divine Comedy to my daughter, spreading manure on the field, with the gallows is still vivid! Since those years, there has been no shortage of editions of “El Biológico in Piassa” in Padua, with his equipment for making brooms and toothbrushes of sorrel or red blood, doing the “storytelling” and proposing his books, always with considerable public success. On organic agriculture he has demonstrated a healthy and honest curiosity and an open approach, unlike many of his generation and his experience, to the point of becoming a convinced supporter and member of our Cooperative on politics, volunteering, the management of common goods, the same religious practice, is and remains for us an element of constructive, open and serene confrontation, as hardly happens, especially when we age. Ignazio has always been able to broaden his comparison with a world like ours, “new” for him, but where he certainly realized that his memories, photographs and poems would not remain in the museum dimension or of mere nostalgia, but in our way of understanding agriculture, food, work, relationships between people, they would have found a more useful, vivid and concrete meaning. In short, they have been years of continuous recognition of shared values, even in different ages and experience. And this is not a negligible thing after decades of systematic demolition of the “peasant” world, a precious social, economic, but also landscape and environmental system, not all positive about people's rights, well-being and social justice, but which in any case has been able to pass on a fertile land to take care of over the centuries. And in general, we did it little and very poorly. A good reason to support the publication of this third literary 'effort' by Ignazio.
Franco Zecchinato
President of the Agricultural Cooperative "El Tamiso”
