Giovanni Guccione has spent decades studying sustainable agriculture in Sicily — the kind of farming that has survived drought, economic hardship, and the slow erosion of ancient traditions. He is a senior researcher at Italy's Council for Agricultural Research and Economics (CREA). He is also a fifth-generation farmer himself. He has seen and heard a lot.
But sitting in a room with Arkansas farmers talking about the urgency and challenges of today’s agriculture, he reached for a metaphor that stopped the whole group cold. “Globally, farmers are on a cliff,” he said. “You can stay there. You can jump. Or you can turn around and try something different.”
