“COMMON LAND” is born

How can we put food back at the center of the political agenda?
Food understood as a right, life, culture, work, health, care, environmental and territorial sustainability, and not as a simple market variable.

With this question Federica Ferraio, from Associazione Terra! , opened the first plenary session of “Common Land”, held in Rome on February 17, at the headquarters of Libera. The meeting was attended by more than 100 organizations and we, as Cooperativa El Tamiso, were also present.

“Common Land” was created with the aim of building a new alliance capable of uniting a plurality of subjects: farmers, biodistricts, food communities, anti-waste networks, GAS, food coop, trade unions, environmental organizations, consumer associations, social realities and citizens.
What keeps this heterogeneous whole together is a shared vision: the will to create a new agri-food model for

In the context of an economy increasingly oriented to war, in which funding for fundamental sectors such as agriculture, health and education is being reduced, while resources allocated to defense are increasing, the failure of the economic, social and environmental system is now evident.

According to the latest ISTAT data, in the last 38 years the average size of Italian farms has more than doubled, while almost two out of three companies have ceased operations. An evolution that tells of a profoundly transformed sector, marked by processes of concentration and by a drastic reduction in the number of operators.

Today, living exclusively on agriculture is increasingly difficult. On the one hand, farmers are recognized as too low a value for their products; on the other hand, final prices are often unsustainable for consumers, with an increasing share of families unable to access quality food. The paradox is evident when we consider that about 65% of the total value of packaged food is absorbed by logistics and marketing, leaving an increasingly small part of the supply chain to the initial rings of the supply chain.

In the manifest of Terra Comune we read:

It is a triple failure: environmental, agricultural and social.
A crisis that affects everyone: those who produce and who eats.

• Farms close, stifled by undercost prices, rising costs and unfair competition.

• People struggle to afford quality food, forced to chase offers and products of dubious origin.

• Food inequalities are growing: the quality of food increasingly depends on income, on the neighborhood in which you live, on the presence or absence of services.

• The climate crisis, aggravated by the same intensive agricultural system, affects production and, consequently, the availability and price of food.

• Public policies are receding and the ecological transition is being questioned just when it would be most urgent, including the protection of soil fertility and biodiversity.

The conditions under which food is produced and brought to our tables must become a collective issue. We can no longer afford to consider agriculture a marginal sector.

“Climate change will have serious consequences, especially on the populations of the poorest countries, but it will not lead to the end of humanity”: this is how Bill Gates, from the height of the glass buildings, reminds us how interconnected everything is in this system of conflicts and inequalities in which we live.

“Public choices must return to investing in life, not in destruction - said Barbara Nappini, president of Slow Food Italia - it is necessary to question the entire model, because the ultimate goal is not profit, but the protection of life.”

“Common Land” has clear objectives:

fight for the right price of food;

to demand real food justice;

guarantee a decent income for farmers;

profoundly review the logic behind the CAP;

promote the agroecological transition of companies, with soil fertility at the center;

put environmental policies back at the center;

overcome the model of intensive farming;

• fight for labor rights and against the corporals.

This is the beginning of a journey that we want to carry out together with Terra! and to all the realities that wish to act concretely to change course, now.

Reading tip: Food
is politics, Fabio Ciconte, Giulio Einaudi Editore — Vele

Common Earth — Towards an Alliance for Just Food