Objective
What is the right price for a jar of tomato puree? or for a jar of honey?
El Tamiso, in collaboration with the Biorekk association, Aiab Veneto and Icea, tried to answer these questions through the LET'S APPRECIATE IT project.
The purpose of the project is to shed light on the price difference between a product on the shelves of large retailers and a product that actually pays for all agricultural costs.
LET'S APPRECIATE IT, which over the years has also involved other products and producers (the Mellarius company and The Earth and the Sky), has thus made it possible to investigate the real costs for the production of a jar of tomato puree, a jar of honey and a kilo of pasta made according to the organic method.
The Sito Mato project
In particular, the El Tamiso cooperative has collaborated with the Biorekk Association to identify the right price of a 550 g jar of organic sauce, an operation that has been called SITO MATO!
We then tried to evaluate the cost starting from everything that happened from the moment the tomato plant was transplanted, through all phases of production and up to the final harvest done by hand.
Within the cost of the product, we tried to quantify, in addition to the cost of raw materials and labor, also the cost of the farmer's vacation, of any sick days and the costs of transformation. All with a view to a transparent economy that fully complies with current contribution regulations.
The project involved, specifically, the homeodynamic organic farm owned by member Severino Bozzolan as a “representative” of the members of the Cooperative.
The results
It has emerged that the agricultural cost of the product (ripe tomato to be processed) exceeds the value of 1€ to produce a jar of about 550g, a value that would adequately repay all the producer's costs, but which we all know how far it is from the current market value.
It certainly affected the cost of labor for the manual collection of the product (about 45%) which, while on the one hand it guaranteed an “exceptional” product, on the other hand, could be replaced by machine collection, which, however, has costs that do not lower the value of the raw material below 60 cents. And then the question comes up again: how many times do we find the passes at a price similar to or less than 0.60€? How much will the agricultural producer be repaid since the cost of the transformation (from artisanal to industrial) varies between 1 and 0.50€
per piece?This project, strongly desired by Biorekk and supported by the organizations that gradually collaborated (El Tamiso, Aiab, Icea), was certainly useful to bring to light these real data and to make sure that more and more people become aware of the mechanisms that govern relationships between producers and distributors and how, every citizen, can intervene to force the transition to more virtuous behavior.
As the economist Leonardo Becchetti wrote, we citizens as consumers have the 'vote in our wallets'. It's true, every time we buy, we vote with our wallet. This is enormous power in the hands of citizens. Do we know how to use it? We can therefore decide whether to continue to support the current profit economy, in the hands of multinationals, or promote an alternative economy, the ethical one, which focuses on humanity and the earth, with great attention to the environment, also offering us quality products that are good for our health.
Here lies the daily action that allows us to weaken, undermining from below, the power of the great economic giants that today want to use the Veneto territory, consolidating it enormously and carrying out a long list of great works. We must remember that behind these large groups there is speculative finance, as well as, often, also corruption.