From the Xylella desert to the rebirth: short chain and investments stop the depopulation of Salento

Food industry and agriculture and return to make the lower Salento flourish, where the landscape of recent years has been dominated by deserted streets, empty houses and gray trees. This is the objective of the « Santi Paduli » project, created by the Open Urban Laboratory Association (LUA) and supported by the Foundation with the South with 2.7 million euros in the 8 municipalities of the « Terre di Mezzo », in the province of Lecce, who with about 2 thousand inhabitants per head include Botrugno, Giuggianello, Muro Leccese, NoCiglia, Sanarica, San Cassiano, Supersano and Surano. Loaded by the young people fleeing the North and marked by the fields devastated by the Xylella – bacterium that since 2010 has devastated the Olivets and the Apulian economy – that territory today is reborn thanks to a network of workers between 30 and 40 who have decided to remain, enhance the landscape and create a short chain to meet the needs of the inhabitants and restart the economy.

The rebirth after the XYLELLA

«Ten years ago the whole territory was destroyed instantly, as if an atomic bomb had been released: we saw all the dry trees. We missed the land under the feet – says Giuseppe Agrosì, founder of the Agrosì farm in Supersano, in the province of Lecce -, we felt abandoned, I thought of leaving Puglia and also Italy « . Agrosì speaks with shiny eyes and high head, surrounded by the three minor children who speak perfect English and his wife, Monica Torsello, with whom he today leads the farm to Supersano, in the province of Lecce. Instead of escaping, together with them he decided to stay, and in his plot, cultivated by generations from his family, he created an educational forest and replanted the olive trees to return to producing oil, this year bottled again for the first time after Xylella. « He helped us not to surrender to have a community and a project, that of the » Saints Paduli « , in which we were not alone – he says -. Many must be to overcome such great difficulties ».

The good canteen

Together with 12 other entrepreneurs, Agrosì is an integral part of the short chain created by the « The good canteen » project, included in the Paduli project, which provides meals to schools and children’s institutes of the area of ​​the eight municipalities using only local, organic and zero -kilometer products. Before the activation of the program created by the LUA association were the multinationals to bring food to children, today everything is created by small businesses by triggering a virtuous production and collaboration circle that guarantees seasonal products to 350 children and is creating about 30 jobs. « This project works because it was wanted by the community, with 20 years active associations – explains Stefano Consiglio, president of the Foundation with the South -. If there are those bonds of confidence in reciprocity in a territory that are the foundation of civil life, these values ​​also reproduce in the economic sphere and give life to economic development initiatives « . The project is part of the Foundation’s 2025-2027 three-year programmatic plan, which identifies the strategic objective of the interventions of the Foundation for the next few years in the contrast to the depopulation of the South. An experiment that seems to be succeeded in the territory of Saints Paduli, where since 2022 it is now a real system of rural welfare. « If my children find other people with these qualities, with this love for the territory, I am sure they will remain, » says Giuseppe Agrosì.

Businesses

Those who have returned and now are part of the project is Giacomo Cavalera, 32 years old, graduated in Modern Literature in Bologna and who today together with the same age Marco Reho on the Capriverdi farm deals with the production of the vegetables that arrive on the canteens of the children: « I returned because in Bologna there was already everything, instead here we could build, now we want to form to understand how to continue to create development », says Cavalera. The same choice made Gabriele Pirelli, 36 years old, who after his studies in economics at the Bocconi University and a work experience in Luxembourg, returned to the bakery of the parents and transformed him into Agrimò, a pasta factory with stone mill and bronze -drawing pasta. « Here the costs are high but you can produce good wheat and children learn to eat a cultivated and transformed product in Puglia. » To bring the eggs to school is the lawyer Pietro Attilio Galati, who raises them on the ground with a free range system: « I started for hobbies – he says – now I have two full -time employees and the breeding will soon reach 1,250 hens ». The stories are held together by Mauro Lazzari, architect, who after his studies in Florence returned to San Cassiano to revive the Paduli. With him Stefania Semeraro, graduated in Lecce after a life spent throughout Italy, Giorgio Ruggeri, born and raised in Lecce and with love for the territory, Francesco Buccarelli, technician of catering services. They are young around 30-40 years old, all there to stay and build: « We believe that a project like the good canteen can teach children to love the territory from an early age, to understand the seasonality of the products, to eat healthy food », explains Francesco.

Recovery

The good canteen is only one of the pieces of the « Santi Paduli » project, which extends over 5,500 hectares of territory and aims to trigger a process of urban regeneration and landscape. Among the objectives carried out by the Lua Association with the South Foundation there is the public olive grove and the park of the park, which have redeveloped a partially abandoned forest and the factory of minor fruits, which has transformed a former deposit of abandoned vehicles into a conversion center of the integral agricultural products but excluded from large -scale distribution.

The alliance between public and private social

The strength of the project lies in the ability to build stable alliances between different local actors. Associations, social cooperatives, consortia, municipalities, schools, small businesses and citizens have joined a co-planning process that has transformed the typical fragmentation of small towns into a resource for shared development, also undermining multinationals. « This is possible only if there are associations that know the territory and want to progress, » says the Director of Foundation with the South Marco Imperiale. The financing of the Foundation, on average with a 3 -year horizon, does not have a deadline and aims to trigger a development that self -proves. « It is a social and cultural infrastructure – he explains – that it becomes the platform on which economic development travels ».