The Sican Network: partners
The math teacher who, thanks to the land, stayed in her Sicily
In Burgio, the Riggio farm
produces oranges, lemons and evo oil
In the heart of Sicily, in Burgio, a well-known ceramics village with an old foundry still active where bells are forged, land for Caterina Riggio, a math and physics teacher at Bivona High School, is invaluable. Because it was thanks to the land, to the family plots, that she was able to remain in her Sicily, putting aside the option of emigrating to the North, which for many young Sicilians seems to be the only possibility of entering the world of work.
Today Caterina Riggio’s farm, which is part of the Sicani Rural Quality District, covers about thirty-six hectares and is dedicated mainly to the cultivation of olives, oranges, lemons and almonds. Caterina carries it on with her husband Stefano Ferrantelli.
“When we got married,” says Caterina Riggio, “still our work situation was precarious and if we were able to decide to stay in Burgio, we owe it to our parents’ choice to give us the land that allowed us to start our business. For us, the land is a precious treasure; and it is on the respect for nature and the enhancement of the excellence of the territory that our company policy is based, centered on the genuineness of our products.”
Washington Navel and Vanilla oranges; lemons of the Lunario variety, the lemon that never stops blooming and fruiting all year round; extra virgin olive oil produced from the Biancolilla, Nocellara and Passulunara cultivars; and, finally, almonds typical of the area.
“The farm,” says Caterina Riggio, “was born in the 1940s. My story begins with my maternal grandparents Caterina and Ciro Pinelli; in the beginning, the land was not even theirs, they rented it from rich landowners, and my grandfather chose it in such a way that they had a source of water nearby. That was how the cultivation of oranges was started. Then, in the 1950s, when there began to be a little more economic prosperity, Grandfather began to buy his first plots of land. He bought them, then resold them and bought others that seemed to him more suitable for growing oranges, better exposed or with more water-the goal was to produce the best oranges possible.”
A quest for quality that still characterizes the Riggio Farm. “In our family,” says Caterina Riggio, “we have always been hard workers, and love for the land has always been a constant and a value to be passed down. When you get married, you are given a piece of land as a gift. And so, in the 1970s when my mother got married, she received her plot of land. A tradition that Mom Antonina and Dad Natale later replicated with me and my sister Rosalia.”
In 2005, the turning point. Thanks to a regional call for proposals to promote agricultural entrepreneurship and to her father-in-law, an olive grower, who rented her land, Caterina Riggio became farm manager and put aside the Northern option for good.
“Today,” he says, “we hope that our choice can also be followed by our daughters: fifteen-year-old Claudia, who attends scientific high school, and Flavia, who is nine and still in elementary school. Our lands have allowed us not to be forced to emigrate to northern Italian regions, and the hope is that our daughters, too, can be free to choose to stay and work, where they were born.”
Text by Editors
