5 Reasons to work on an Italian Organic Farm and AgriTourism Project….

Before leaving NZ I was sure that I didn’t want to own my own property (especially one with land requiring maintenance) for a long time. After working on Sebastiano’s farm in Southern Italy for 3 weeks, I’m looking forward to having my own place where I will be able to grow and eat my own food, and - cheesy as it sounds - get my hands dirty in the garden. There were plenty of other great things about our time on The Petrelli Farm, so I’ve done my best to round up the Top 5...

1. Food (surprise, surprise). With 80% of what we ate and drank coming from the fields where we worked every day, and most of it picked within hours of eating, we ate well. This was helped by the fact that Sebastiano (our Host, Boss, and Chef) was exactly the sort of person that you’d hope to find in an Italian kitchen. When we would say, “Seb, this pasta is amazing!“, he would reply, “I know. It is incredible” - this was not just an Italian’s lack of Kiwi excess modesty, as he would go on to credit the ingredients for the quality of the meal (of course mentioning that he had grown those as well). So although I did my best to pick up tips and recipes, it seems that I’ll just have to get my Green Thumbs into action once this travel business takes it’s next break.
   
   
   
2. Sleep (surprised?). Waking early to make the most of working in the cool mornings, we would take an afternoon siesta that is the only real option once you’ve been toiling (I know, it was as tough as it sounds) in the fields all morning and have a tummy full of goodness from lunch (sparking the inevitable food coma). Another few hours work in the late afternoon would create enough fatigue for another deep, instant sleep at night.
   
   
   
3. Wine (sorry, still no surprises). Having a number of vineyards, and a brother who won Italy’s Organic Winemaking awards last year, made it hard for the wine from the previous harvest (that we decanted from the huge vats in the cellar) to be a bad drop. Again, “Seb, your wine is really good!”…. “I know - it’s really great”.
   
   
   
4. People. Seb welcomed us in our (sometimes strange) capacity as a mix of workers, guests, and family, sharing his own friends and family with us.
   
   His mother Fiarma - a “Real Italian Momma” - comes to live at the farm for a few months every summer, and is the true boss of everything(at least while she is there), including the surrounding villages. We learned to tune out the Italian shouting matches between Mother and Son (both well meaning and very headstrong, with even more than the usual amount of Italian passion and drama thrown in for good measure). We also had many hours of learning about the corruption of Italian politics in Fiarma’s hyperbolic vocabulary, and her endless fight and activism against the “terrible” people in power and their “’orribull” power games. But underneath it all we came to know the soft Fiarma who took us under her wing, brought us treats, and baked us a special soufflé on our last night before asking us to visit her at her home in Tuscany.
   
   We met Seb’s friends who would visit from around Europe and all walks of life - art dealers, bankers, artists, hospital charity workers, and more - coming for a few nights, or sometimes just a meal (our first being swordfish caviar pasta). Our favourite was a Swedish girl who he had met and invited away for a romantic weekend, we took her into the fields to escape the attention of the Italian Momma, and got to be the nosy workers asking prying questions about their boss’ “other side“.
   
   Our last few days overlapped with Mariana from Brazil - the next worker - who imparted our now considerable knowledge of the farm’s workings (particularly how best to handle the contradicting double-boss situation, as well as the subtleties of goat milking technique).
   
   But the most interesting person was Sebastiano himself. An eldest son whose father died young and who never got along with his mother, he was a banker and entrepreneur in London for 25 years before deciding to take over the family’s various neglected plots of land in Southern Italy: His plan, to restore the ruined 17th century buildings and create a boutique AgriTourism project and retreat. With a strong emphasis on organic farming principles and restoring the buildings to their original glory (rather than modernising), the farm is truly a special place, and his vision for the eventual completion of the project is impressive.
   
   And Seb is manic. Juggling lazy builders. Dealing with endless Italian bureaucracy(NZ has no red tape in comparison). Chasing grant/funding requests (so far he has been granted over 600,000 Euro for development of his project, but seen none of it). Recruiting, training, and feeding workers such as ourselves every 2-4 weeks. Keeping his mother off of his back (or trying to). Running thee farm, milking goats, pruning vines etc. And still inviting friends and visitors to stay. But he loves it. He loves the challenge, he loves that he is doing something that he truly believes in, and that it will be good for others too.
   
   And every now and then, through his often abrupt manner and general whirlwind pace, you get to see Seb’s soft side. He will stop the tractor, jump off the wheel arch to grab a ripe pear from a tree for you, or put aside a special part of his “amazing” meal for you. He will take you for a 45min bushwhacking hike to his favourite, otherwise inaccessible seaside spot and share it with you. He will drop the brisk, business-like efficiency and put on his favourite alternative 70’s trippy film soundtracks after dinner and talk about his favourite bands and directors over some fantastic wine. Or most often, he will drop what he’s doing to run off and play with his best friend, Baikal.
   
   No wonder we didn’t miss television or internet while on the farm.
   
   
   
5. Working the land.
   
   Spending hours in the vege garden with the chickens and their stray guard dog Phee(this was what we named her - apparently every set of workers renames her something different), who is still a puppy and doesn’t quite have the grunt to scare off the foxes just yet.
   
   Making friends with the dogs (Seb’s Baikal, a Welsh hunting dog and ultimate best friend whose dinner is cooked and served before humans each night, and Fiarma’s super intelligent German Shepherd, Tsar, whose arthritic hind legs don‘t stop him from trying to hunt the goat and pigs - even though he also gets his own meal of puffed rice and meat cuts cooked each evening too).
   
   Convincing Penny the goat to let us milk her each morning so that we can make fresh cheese, while keeping the pigs at bay with their daily ration of pizza crusts from the local restaurant. Very Italian pigs.
   
   Learning the hard way how not to harvest buckwheat, how heavy hay bales can get after throwing them for two hours, and how many fennel plants it takes to fill even a small container with seeds.
   
   Learning to drive a tiny Fiat Panda on crazy mountain roads (or fields), through villages not made for cars. Or just learning to sit in the boot with the dogs while Seb treats every trip like a rally stage.
   
   Getting your hands dirty and earning your dinner.

In short, we loved our break from being on the move, and grabbed with both hands the chance to be part of something rather than just being a traveller who looks in from the outside. We will miss our new found Italian home.

Pictures: Our Fiat Panda, with which I learned to drive like a true Italian, and a standard breakfast on the farm (views over the mountains to the sea included)