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A network of sages to revive agriculture in Italy

The brilliant idea is by Renzo Angelini and takes origin from a series of books dedicated to the fruits of the land and the work of man. Is it maybe the time to repeat the experience of Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie in an agricultural key?

by Luigi Caricato
http://www.luigicaricato.net

Renzo Angelini

Renzo Angelini, as the creator and editor of the series “Coltura & Cultura” (“Cultivation & Culture” link esterno), did not just publish volumes on farming and products of the land, but taking inspiration from the little importance of farming nowadays, he has also worked at setting up a “network of sages” to revive agriculture.

Angelini, an enlightened manager with Bayer CropScience, accurately selected an important nucleus of authors, almost five hundreds, who collaborated to ten volumes of an encyclopedic series on the most representative cultivations of Italian agriculture (link esterno).

This is supposed to build a network of authors that would give voice and visibility to the professionals of agriculture. Such a network of sages is, unlike other similar initiatives, an unprecedented experience of success in the Italian editorial panorama. It reminds the XVIIIth century Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s “Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers” and, with no exaggeration, the current ten volumes, plus the seven in press, of the series, are truly comparable to that opus.

The series is not just a passing episode, with scarce if any future vision, but several scholars and communicators can get carried away thanks to its agile structure.

Paolo Inglese, professor at University of Palermo, has invited to “leave the crib of agriculture”, and insisted on the need for a communication to the consumers different from the old leitmotif of tradition. It is time to unveil the new side of innovation. Tradition cannot be saved without innovation, although the dominant communication strategy is based on a crib-like traditional image.

Another key turning-point is sustainability. “The producers – says professor Carlo Corino, from University of Milan – often post losses. The value of sustainability is binding: the need for precise projects, able to offer concrete answers, is absolute”. For now, no solution can be envisioned, as there is no credible agriculture without farmers.

Oiv president Federico Castellucci says that the only possible way to revive agriculture will entail “focus on real aspects, avoiding an imaginary and impalpable agriculture”. Castellucci unleashed on the “flying nuts of Slow Food” who refuse to qualify as farming entrepreneurs and just define themselves farmers. It is time, according to Castellucci, to give voice and visibility to agroindustry.

The few meetings that have taken place thus far proposed several ideas. For now, the main result is that the intellectuals of rurality are ready to take the field with pride. There is great ambition, and a great need and sense of urgency to promote an authentic renaissance of an agricultural culture as well.

In all earnest, and not-so-secretly, all of us would hope to repeat the magnificent experience of Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s “Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers”, applied to the farming world. This is not an unreasonable task, because Renzo Angelini’s “Coltura & Cultura” is a solid reference in Italy, a sure thing. The network of sages has been created, in Italy, and it has to be supported, in the hope that other countries will adopt the same model.

by Luigi Caricato
http://www.luigicaricato.net
05 July 2010 Teatro Naturale International n. 7 Year 2

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