The race with the weather has always been one of agriculture's challenges.
In every sense of the word, that is, with the weather that passes and the weather that rains. Those who produce food know that there are seasons in which you have to run and seasons in which you have to wait, seasons of abundance and freshness during which you have to think and conserve for the seasons of rest or for those less fortunate climatically.
But beware: it is not just a race, it is also an alliance, and those who produce food know this too.
For while it is true that a little must be protected-as is often the case with mothers-from Mother Nature and her rhythms, it is also true that a lot must be surrendered to her and her mechanisms and used for our own good.
The buds, the flowers, the fruits, the harvest, the market, the table. This is the sequence, but the gems must command, and so in the meantime we create well-being and beauty, health and justice. If we start with the market instead, if we let it command, it is war. War of all against all, to get there first, to sell in "counter-season," that is, offering products when it is not time, perhaps making them travel who knows how far and still producing them at any cost, even at the cost of waging war on plants, soil and people with deadly poisons. We are waging war on nature forgetting that we are part of it and that its times are our own, and to force them with poisons is to poison ourselves. Thus are also born the inviting displays of certain stores, certain supermarkets, certain general or local markets. Triumphs of colors, perfect shapes that will inexplicably last like that for weeks. That fruit will appear perfect, will arrive when we don't expect it, will seem like a gift, a nice surprise. But it is a story we know well, nothing good will come of it: Snow White's apple was beautiful.
By Carlo Petrini from La Repubblica 10/3/13
