It would be hard to identify a dynamic that is more basic to Italy and Italians than the relation between agriculture and culture; or, to render it in Italian: coltura-cultura, the almost identical words clearly demonstrating their related nature. Of course, this relation is evident throughout the world, because it was principally through the devel...

When Sicilian farmer Rosolini Palazzolo first started growing papayas 11 years ago, hardly any of his neighbors even knew what they were. Now, the southern Italian island famed for its picturesque orange and lemon groves is dotted with the kind of exotic fruit trees more usually associated with tropical climates - from papaya to bananas to mangoes....

Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’! The Delta – an area filled with folks from all walks of life. The rich Delta soil has been home to folks who came from far away to begin a new life for their families. Many can point back to several generations and can also pinpoint their beginnings across the ocean in tiny Italian villages. In the late 1800s, they came...

Greeks and Romans offered spelt to the Gods, Aztecs considered chia seeds worthy of tributes, and farro is noted in the Old Testament. Today, approximately 70% of cultivated land is destined to the production of cereals, mostly wheat, barley, rye, rice, millet, sorghum, and corn. No other plant has influenced the history of man like wheat, whose cu...

Regno Unito, Germania e Giappone fra i migliori “clienti” dell’Italia agroalimentare, senza dimenticare gli Usa. È uno dei risultati dell’analisi svolta da Nomisma in vista del Forum Agrifood Monitor 2018 sull’andamento delle esportazioni agroalimentari italiane nei primi 5 mesi del 2018. Se negli Usa le importazioni totali di prodotti agroalimenta...

Italian organic retailer EcorNaturaSì has teamed up with NGO Legambiente to introduce reusable bags for fruit and vegetables. The first initiative of its kind in Italy, it provides for the distribution of 100,000 reusable bags for fruit and vegetables in more than 500 specialised organic stores under the banners NaturaSì and Cuorebio. The move come...

So you know you love Italian olives and olive oil, but do you know the difference between different olive cultivars? Olive cultivars, or varieties of olives, play a significant role in determining an olive's color, shape, and flavor. There are literally hundreds of olive cultivars growing throughout the world, with at least 400 known varieties in I...

Chinotto is a citrus fruit originally from China, exclusively grown on the Ligurian coast, in the Savona area since the end of the 19th century. These small, uniquely fragrant fruits, used to be sold candied and preserved in maraschino, after having been kept under a sea water brine for some time. At the beginning of the 1930s, the first chinotto s...

Trying to pack in all of Italy's sights can start to feel a lot like hard work. So why not swap the obligatory attractions for actual labour on one of the country's organic farms? As contributor Paul Batty discovered in the Tuscan countryside, a working holiday doesn't have to be a dull one. From the leaning tower of Pisa to the marble marvels of F...

One thousand feet above Washington's Columbia Valley, the highest reaches of dusty Snipes Mountain lie beneath river stones, vineyards staked incongrously in a mix of arid earth and the water-rounded rocks of gemlike beauty and crayon-color variation that winegrowers here call cobblestones. Less than than seven inches of rain fall on them every yea...