Organic farming as a career choice: Italy’s young farmers | DW Documentary

Astonishing new data from the Italian farmers' association: More and more young people are moving away from cities to rural areas in order to work in farming. For many, it’s an active choice to change career.

The association says the number of young farmers in Italy has risen by 13 per cent over the last 10 years, more than anywhere else in Europe. One of these new farmers is the young Roman Giacomo Lepri. After graduating with a degree in ethnology, like many young Italians he struggled to find a job. Instead of going abroad, he founded the Cooperativa Agricola Coraggio. Now, he is fighting to have unused public land in the city of Rome allocated to young farmers. He hopes to join forces with like-minded people to organically farm the abandoned Borghetto San Carlo estate.

Rome has been Italy's largest owner of agricultural land since antiquity. Giacomo Leprì's campaign is aimed at changing urban policy, so that the capital's agricultural heritage can be tapped to create jobs for young farmers.

In the steep hills around the city of Genoa there’s also plenty of agricultural land -abandoned because cultivating it is a challenge. When Davide Moro and Matteo Rizzitano decide to quit their jobs at a car body repair shop, finding land to farm wasn’t a problem. Nevertheless, the path for these new young farmers in Rome and Genoa has been strewn with obstacles. Despite EU goals to promote urgently-needed generational change in agriculture, securing long-term financial resources is difficult for small businesses like these.

Still, the two men say there’s no chance they’re giving up. The career changers aren’t just motivated by Italy’s high youth jobless rate, but also by a desire for self-determined work close to nature.

#documentary #dwdocumentary #dwdocs #italy #career #farmer
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