Co.r.ag.gio Agricultural Cooperative — Borghetto San Carlo
22 hectares of organic and civic agriculture in the Veio Park, on the Via Cassia in Rome.
The story of a dispute won by young Roman farmers: abandoned public lands transformed into a multifunctional laboratory for biodiversity, training, and active citizenship.
Where the city meets the Veio Park
To get to the Coraggio Agricultural Cooperative, just follow the Via Cassia exiting the Capital, that ancient Roman consular road that for two thousand years has connected Rome atEtruria and which today passes through populous metropolitan neighborhoods. At the gates of the city, there is the Borghetto San Carlo Estate: 22 hectares of public land which for decades had remained abandoned, at risk of being built over. Today those 22 hectares are the productive, educational and civic heart of one of the most fascinating experiences of Italian organic urban agricultureA farm that is a vegetable garden, a biodiversity orchard, an olive grove, an apiary, a picnic area, a training school, a restaurant, and a welcoming place. Borghetto San Carlo is located in a symbolic geographical position: on Via Francigena, the thousand-year-old pilgrimage route that led from Canterbury to Rome, and in Veio Park, fourth largest natural park in Lazio, custodian of an extraordinary Etruscan archaeological history (Veii was one of the twelve great Etruscan lucumonies before the Roman conquest in the 4th century BC) and of rural landscapes that have remained almost intact on the outskirts of the metropolis. A place where antiquity and modernity, city and countryside, art and agriculture merge into a unique experience.
A name that is a manifesto: Co.r.ag.gio
The name of the Cooperative itself is already a political and cultural statement. Courage is the acronym for “Roman Youth Agriculture Cooperative” — a play on words that is anything but casual: the courage It's exactly what the founders needed to embark on their journey, and what continues to serve them to carry it forward every day. Coraggio to challenge the building speculation which has threatened the Roman countryside for decades; courage to demand access to land for young people in a country where the average age of farmers is now over 60; courage to organize a civic movement capable of speaking together with public administrations and citizens; courage to bet on a “replicable” agricultural model that could serve as an example for other young people in other Italian cities. The Cooperative team is the sum of multidisciplinary skills that modernity requires of quality agriculture: young farmers, professional chefs, specialized laborers, anthropology, biology, communication experts, educatorsAn agriculture that is not backwardness but conscious choice of future.
2011: The Manifesto and the "Landless Agricultural Society"
The story of Co.r.ag.gio begins in 2011, when a group of young Romans - aspiring farmers, environmental activists, citizens sensitive to the problems of the territory - gives life to the Roman coordination of access to land. September of the 2011 is made the first large mural on the topic in the city, followed by the publication of the programmatic document "Dispute to Safeguard Roman Agro — Public Land for Young Farmers“, a real one political platform which asked institutions to entrust public lands that had been left in a state of decay for too long to young farmers. Thus, paradoxically, the first “Co.r.ag.gio Agricultural Society” - Still without a single hectare of landAn acronym that exists, a manifesto that circulates, a team that is formed, but no field to cultivate. From 2011 poster, the key phrase that guided the entire process: the claim of a “a liveable city, far from the logic of building speculation, a city once again capable of producing the goods necessary for its survival, which aims at self-sufficiency“The political objective was ambitious: counteract “environmental discontinuity” in progress between city and countryside, making green spaces a new civic resource, building a new way of experiencing the Italian metropolitan urban context.
2012: the Appian Way garrison
In 2012 the movement makes its first strong public gesture: about a month of civil garrison inside the Tormarancia Estate, in Appian Way ParkA nonviolent, symbolic, and proactive protest aimed at drawing the attention of the media and public opinion to a striking paradox: hundreds of hectares of public lands in the territory of the Municipality of Rome they were formally collectively owned - but in fact unused for decades, subject to degradation, in many cases under threat of speculative building developmentThe Appian Way Presidium became a point of reference for activists, farmers, and citizens from all over Italy. In the same year, Co.r.ag.gio launched its first training seminars.Cultivate your future“, and takes care of the publication of the manual “Cultivate Your Future. Orientation for Multipurpose Farming” — a text that will become an educational tool for many young people who want to take up farming in Italy.
2013: The 10.000 Petition and Vandana Shiva's "Real Food Heroes" Award
Il 2013 it's the year of the turning. Co.r.ag.gio launches on Change.org, together with the association Land! Onlus and to the association Anti-Mafia from the South, the petition “#PublicLandsForYoungFarmers” — a campaign that aims to highlight the extraordinary potential of 22 hectares of Borghetto San Carlo and to put pressure on the regional institutions of Lazio. The result is sensational: 10.000 signatures in just two weeksThe Roman citizens responded en masse, demonstrating that the issue of the relationship between the city and agriculture, between building and green spaces, was already felt as urgent by a significant portion of civil society. 2013 an international recognition of exceptional prestige arrives: the “Real Food Heroes 2013” award assigned by Indian philosopher, ecologist and activist Vandana Shiva for Navdanya International —the global organization founded by Shiva for the defense of indigenous seeds, agricultural biodiversity, and food sovereignty. This recognition places Co.r.ag.gio on the international map of organic and civic agriculture movements, alongside hundreds of experiences around the world. 2014 a second prize arrives: the “Green Environment 2014” of VAS Onlus (Verdi Ambiente e Società), an Italian award for environmental commitment.
March 2014: the first call for proposals after ten years of silence
The pressure of civil society produces its effects. In March 2014 la Lazio region, through the agency ARSIAL (Regional Agency for the Development and Innovation of Agriculture of Lazio), publishes the First call for tenders for the assignment of public lands after ten years of institutional silenceA historic turning point. The calls for tenders lead to the assignment of 11 green areas in the territory of Rome and Lazio, for a total of about 400 hectares of areas recovered for public agricultural production. Co.r.ag.gio is participating in the tender with its own agricultural project, based on the principles of multifunctionality,certified organic agriculture and short supply chain and social usability of the lands - and wins the assignment of the 22 hectares of Borghetto San CarloThe dream that began three years earlier with the first mural and the poster has come true: the young Roman farmers have finally the earth.
May 2015: The Arrival in Borghetto San Carlo
In May 2015 The Co.r.ag.gio Agricultural Cooperative officially takes over the management of the Borghetto San Carlo Estate. From that moment on, the concrete phase: the cleanup of abandoned land, the planning of crops, the installation of the first seedings, the arrangement of the buildings on the assigned areas. There were problems and disagreements—agreements not always respected by the Municipality of Rome and the building contractors who were supposed to be responsible for the renovations of the buildings—but the battle led awareness among citizens and offered a concrete and exemplary model for a new way of understanding agriculture in modern times, reproducible in other Italian cities. Since that May 2015, Borghetto San Carlo has grown to become one of the landmarks of Roman urban agriculture.
What is grown: the biodiversity orchard, the olive grove, vegetables, honey
Today in Borghetto San Carlo they grow certified organic agri-food products in full respect of seasonality and biodiversity. In the field: seasonal vegetables, cereals, vegetable, and especially the orchard of biodiversity — a real one living gene bank with more than 50 varieties for 7 species various fruit, many of which belong to ancient and rare cultivars from the Roman and Lazio regions which would otherwise risk disappearing. Next to the orchard, themulti-varietal olive grove with 6 species different types of olive trees, an expression of the varietal richness of olive growing in Lazio – which, dating back to the Etruscan-Roman period, has preserved some of the oldest cultivars in Italy (Carboncella, Frantoio, Leccino, Itrana, Rosciola). The farm also hosts arnie for organic honey production millefiori (fruit of the spontaneous blooms of the Veio Park) and acacia (clear and delicate, harvested in spring). A varied production deeply integrated with the territory, which fully embodies the concept of multifunctional agriculture: growing food, supporting biodiversity, preserving the landscape, generating culture.
Multifunctional agriculture: catering, training, teaching
Co.r.ag.gio is much more than a farm: it is a multifunctional agriculture laboratory which provides the community with a variety of social, environmental and cultural services. There is thepicnic area with over 150 seats immersed in the greenery of the Veio Park — a popular destination for Roman families on weekends. There is thechildren's play area, because introducing organic farming to children is an essential part of the educational mission. They organize guided tours to the estate, where visitors can see how it is grown, pick vegetables, learn about bees, and participate in the life of the farm. Catering of the Cooperative enhances the products of the garden according to the principles of short supply chain,nutrition education and anti-waste: each dish tells the story of the fields just outside the window. From 2012 Co.r.ag.gio designs and creates the “Cultivate Your Future” training seminars, aimed at young people who want to take up the profession of farmers; homonymous publication has become a national reference text for theorientation towards multifunctional agricultural activity. In addition to this, the Cooperative offers green care services and teaching for schools of every order and degree of the Roman metropolitan territory.
A model for the future of Italian cities
The history of Co.r.ag.gio is today a case study for those who deal with urban regeneration, local agriculture, active citizenship, new rurality. It shows in a concrete way how a movement of determined young people can, in a few years, change public policies and transform degraded areas into places of food production, socialization, and culture. It is no coincidence that the Roman experience has been studied and sometimes replicated in other Italian and European cities, where the theme of abandoned public lands and access to land for young people represents one of the central issues for the future of metropolitan areas. Farming in Borghetto San Carlo means, today as then, choose the future: the future of good, organic food, the future of young people in agriculture, the future of cities capable of feeding themselves, the future of an Italy that does not abandon its most beautiful lands.
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