Saturday at 'Fistomba' was a very nice and peaceful birthday party.
For us, who put only the organization and the invitation into it, the response of so many friends, their best wishes and above all the atmosphere that was breathing, is a source of pride. Just as our Paolo wrote a few days ago...
“The El Tamiso cooperative is nothing more than a loom within which an intertwining of human relationships is woven between farmers, consumers, suppliers, friends, acquaintances with a common ideal, who base their lifestyle on the principles of organic agriculture and who pursue the dream of a fair and sustainable world through simple daily choices... for 30 years!”
I was very struck by the recurring content of the various greetings: El Tamiso is a 'place' where it is possible to create an economy based on shared values; which then are sustainability: on work, the environment, solidarity, sharing, the landscape, respect for life and people.
All things that should naturally be connected with the idea and practice of organic agriculture, if it is not seen only as a complex of agricultural rules and techniques.
In short, out of rhetoric, an economy of relationships based on love, in the sense of 'taking care' of oneself and the other - journalistically, the all too often used 'I care'.
Now, we know that there is still a long way to go to a goal of this level, and perhaps infinite, because every time you think you are there you realize that you can do more.
And that the necessary mediations are many and continuous, but that many recognize this genuine effort, is of great comfort.
But what is an economy of peace?
It's all too easy these days when missiles are being fired at beaches and hospitals in Gaza (...) to conclude that this is certainly not consistent with our concept of an exchange economy.
And it is also easy to communicate to the world that we are not interested in commercial exchanges with Israel, organic or non-organic, but not even with those who do “very normal” business with the government of that country.
Even if in everyday life it is enough to go and have a certain coffee at the bar, to refute this approach.
We need information, attention and conscience, not very common.
But we can go much and more simply further, on our life choices, even the most trivial ones, we just have to start to decline the idea that the destiny of the world depends on this, whether near or far.
Apparently we all agree that money is not an end in itself, but a simple convention for exchanging values, and satisfying needs.
It is dramatic to discover how many go to buy anything as long as the cost is (lower); without realizing that that money/value disappears from their daily horizon, often ends up in financial speculation, and no longer returns in terms of work and opportunities for development and better well-being, for themselves and for others.
Not to mention the environmental and health costs that weigh on the community, and not on the price of the specific product or service, and that we therefore pay elsewhere.
In short, how else can you define a so-called economy based on speculation, on private exploitation and without limits of common resources, taking advantage of the weakest conditions of others, if not a war economy?
And it's certainly not a poetic license... or do we think that migrants who risk everything they have, including their lives, to cross the Mediterranean, do it for pleasure?
Do we think that the import of fruit and vegetables, typically Italian, is increasing vertically, because our agricultural producers are all incapable? Or why are they unable to submit to the blackmail of a certain distribution and close? Perhaps his life is extended with a few taxpayers' resources, in terms of contributions, almost always for the benefit of the commercial and industrial industries that, yes, “live” on agriculture
Hardly anyone knows that our country is the world's largest importer of firewood (Italy?!). That maybe we don't have woods and people looking for work?
And then this story of not paying taxes... however unfair they are, this is the direct consequence of a certain idea of Society, in which essentially everyone is at war with everyone.
Or that making an artisan from their territory work, with whom to share ideas, values and objectives, is a luxury?
Or that there is no hope that we can finally return to using the 'bank' as a common tool to improve the conditions and 'happiness' of a people? - I'm not saying it... but the president of Uruguay, Mujica, and the president of Burkina Fasu, Thomas Sankarà, but maybe also Bob Kennedy several years ago - we are trying it out with Banca Etica.
That we cannot beat this imperialist logic of multinationals/states that want to impose transgenics and the patenting of seeds on us, taking away the last real sovereignty, which is food sovereignty, in a misunderstood “global economy” and an equally misunderstood “free” market?
But do we want to somehow be complicit in all this, that is, to pretend nothing, or to pursue our own alternative path?
Our grandparents, here at the Fruit and Vegetable Market, would say that “the deal is done in two!” , understanding with great wisdom and simplicity, that no business can be defined as such if it does not bring satisfaction to all those involved.
Well; some of us 30 years ago decided to call “El Tamiso” after their desire to go other ways — Tamiso, in Venetian dialect, but also in Provençal and Catalan, is a tool that is halfway between the field and the table; it is used to select the most useful things from the least, just what we wanted to do, starting from our place and our passion for the land.
In the next 30 years we will try to represent a modest, sober and concrete testimony that there is another way of understanding the economy, that of peace.
Franco Zecchinato, president of the El Tamiso Cooperative
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