She doesn’t even know how to define what now, with some frequency, happens on her property, Tenuta Badia, 60 hectares of citrus and olive groves in Rosarno: intimidation, retaliation, attacks? Patrizia Rodi Morabito, an agricultural entrepreneur in a fertile and lush area of the Piana di Gioia Tauro, however infested by labor recruiters and various criminality, moves quietly. She is cautious in recounting the abuses she suffers on those lands that her father handed over to her 14 years ago: olive trees cut down, kiwi and pomegranate plantations set on fire, thefts of quintals of citrus fruits and equipment. In the last month, three fires. “And just to mention the most striking events,” she explains. “Caused by whom? I don’t know. No one has claimed responsibility,” says the entrepreneur from Rosarno. She is tired but does not back down.
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Starting again from the wounds inflicted on the land
“They burn my kiwis? And I reclaim the land and plant another orchard. They cut down the olive trees and I replace them. I always start again from where they create the problem. I start again from the wounds inflicted on my land.” And she addresses the land with love and respect, following the teachings of agroecology. She uses natural methods to enrich the soil, protect crops from pests, and avoid synthetic chemical products.
Pierre Rabhi’s agroecology in the Piana di Gioia Tauro
Respect for biodiversity and the rights of those who work the land, according to the theories of the French peasant philosopher Pierre Rabhi, of Algerian origin, developed from the thought of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, an American theosophist, and the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Rabhi was the founder of the Colibris, a global alternative network practicing new models of society based on food autonomy, ecology, and humanism in the spirit of a ‘happy sobriety’: agriculture united with ethics. And inner ecology.
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Like a Benedictine nun
“This approach of mine also annoys. I adapt to the land, I accompany the plants in their growth,” explains Rodi Morabito, “I do not force them with chemicals, I cut the grass only when necessary, to keep the soil cooler and moister, I rigorously prune my centuries-old olive trees, requesting the required authorizations, waiting for the inspectors. Do they want to weaken me? Instead, I take a step forward every day. Like a Benedictine nun.”
Lea Garofalo Award in 2024, the woman who was a victim of the ’ndrangheta, killed in November 2009 by her ex-partner, the entrepreneur from Rosarno collects recognitions in the name of legality. Certificates that act somewhat as a protective barrier, making her activity and also the damages suffered public. An exposure that Patrizia Rodi Morabito would not have wanted, but with which she must live. Even the police keep a close watch on her. Unions and institutions express solidarity on every occasion, against the logic of criminal submission. “I walk on a razor’s edge. But I receive many signs of attention, much solidarity and I am not afraid for myself. If anything, the relentlessness, the episodes that keep happening, start to surprise me.”
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