La cooperativa sociale Valle del Marro - Libera Terra su the Economist

Business in southern Italy
Taking on the mob
Feb 1st 2007 GIOIA TAURO
From The Economist print edition

A farming co-operative defies the Calabrian Mafia

DECEMBER 20th was a normal working day in the large container-port at Gioia Tauro in Calabria. It was also a normal working day for the 'ndrangheta, the Mafia that rules the region. Mafiosi broke into the workshop of the Cooperativa Valle del Marro, about five miles inland, stole equipment and damaged machinery. Established two years ago by a group of young people, the co-operative is the first firm in Calabria to seek to establish a legitimate business using assets that were once owned by the Mafia. The cause of the break-in was the co-op's audacity to farm land that, until its confiscation by the courts, had belonged to the Piromalli family, the most powerful around Gioia Tauro.

The co-op's members pulled out citrus trees from long-neglected orchards, prepared the land to plant crops and last spring harvested their first chilli peppers and aubergines for bottling in extra-virgin olive oil obtained from olive groves, also confiscated from mafiosi, ten miles away in Oppido Mamertina. A left-leaning co-operative group helped with a grant of €50,000 ($65,000), Tuscan organisations donated machinery and members put in cash. Even so, finance is a problem. Monthly pay is about €1,000 and several of the co-op's members work unpaid.

Banks are reluctant to lend money, since the land belongs to the state and the co-op lacks assets to pledge in guarantee. Despite these difficulties, and the authorities' lukewarm support, the co-op successfully launched its first products last July, emphasising their anti-Mafia credentials. The break-in at Gioia Tauro, which was accompanied by sabotage at Oppido Mamertina, was a blow. “The risk of further attacks will increase after we have planted in April. Poisoning and uprooting are easy,” says Giacomo Zappia, the co-operative's chairman.

The co-op will soon be even more vulnerable, since it plans to double the cultivated area to 14 hectares and increase its productive olive groves to 43 hectares. Unlike the nearby container-port's high fences, with their barbed wire, armed guards and anti-intruder technology, the co-operative's boundaries are easily breached. More than others in Calabria, Mr Zappia's firm is in the front line.

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