Italian fair trade organisation, Altromercato, recently started a collaboration with a Consortium, which gathers together organic fruit and vegetables producers from 5 regions in Southern Italy.
After the project’s success in Italy, its focus is now on the foreign market. This will be possible thanks to its subsidiary Agrofair, European importer and distributor of fresh fair trade products.
The main project goal is the promotion of products that come from Italian cooperatives, consortia and growers that operate in full respect of fair trade values and principles.
Ethical and sustainable farming products grow on lands that are free from any kind of mafia, exploitation and ‘caporalato’ (employment of illegal immigrants).
“The Solidale Italiano Altromercato project is just the actualisation of our philosophy”, says Antonio Fricano, President of the Aposicilia Consortium.
“We’ve always tried to guarantee a fair wage to our producers, according to their efforts. Thanks to the organic method, we try to respect both farmers and land, since we want to create the perfect conditions so that our land can keep on yielding and the production won’t stop over time”.
The challenge is to develop an organic and sustainable farming method that guarantees to all producers a fair remuneration and to future generations the possibility of growing up in a healthy environment.
“Organic farming is a forced choice”, continues Fricano, “in fact, ‘choice’ is a play on words, since conventional farming has no more reasons to exist or will disappear in the long term, due to economic but also social and environmental reasons. We should consider that we have been exploiting our planet too much”.
In light of recent scandals regarding workers’ exploitation, in particular in Southern Italy, there emerges the need for a ‘clean’ production chain, characterised by a proper and fair value distribution among all its actors, from growers to end consumers.
As the Cooperative Agroviva President Gianfranco Cunsolo points out: “The Solidale Italiano project is extremely important, since European agriculture is suffering. Growers’ wages are getting lower, products lose their value in supermarkets, growing competition in the large-scale retail trade lowers the prices of fruit and vegetables. If we are not able to spread the value that hides behind agricultural products, this sector will completely become a business managed by organised crime and exploiters”.
For more information:
Frank Vermeersch
Customer Relations & Marcom Mgr.
T. +31(0)180 643 975
M. +31(0)654 774 190
Customer Relations & Marcom Mgr.
T. +31(0)180 643 975
M. +31(0)654 774 190
Email: frank.vermeersch@agrofair.nl
Skype: frank-agrofair