It has been since 1998 that Valdibella Cooperative is working in Camporeale, Italy to create and spread alternatives to the food system in Sicily. With more than 30 members, Valdibella Cooperative aims at restoring dignity to farmers by promoting concrete actions against commercial and labour exploitation and by applying organic agricultural methods focused on biodiversity and native crops.

As a guardian of the Sicilian durum wheat Timilia, Valdibella obtained the right to produce and multiply their seeds and is contributing to the preservation and conservation of this ancient and resilient variety. The valorization of the wheat is taking place thanks to the realization of many products such as different types of pasta, breadsticks, flours, and couscous. Valdibella works in favour of the collective interest by maintaining agricultural biodiversity, providing quality and health guarantees for consumers and investing in local products.

Additionally to wheat products, Valdibella cooperative cultivates several autochthonous varieties of grapes (Catarratto, Nero D’avola, Nerello Mascherese, Grillo), from which it produces natural wines boosting the agricultural diversity by integrating local fruit trees and different kinds of vegetables.

Every producers’ land is grown organically on a small plot of land using agroecological practices such as intercropping, agroforestry, mulching, cover cropping, water storage, and natural pest control management.

Promoting the circular economy, Valdibella has two main centres to gather and process the raw materials coming from the producers: a wine cellar located in the headquarters in Camporeale and a processing area in Fargione, a village close to Camporeale. Through the wine production and the processing of all the fruits and vegetables for the creation of pates, creams, pasta, oils, juices etc, Valdibella adds value to producers’ work and thus is able to connect them to agroecology markets that respect the nature and the people of Camporeale.

Together with the NoE association, Valdibella Cooperative is the first and only Community of Change promoted by Slow Food, born to give a new life to almost five hectares of land taken back from the mafia with the creation of a food forest in Partinico, Italy. The project shows how social and environmental justices can coexist by pairing agroecological practices of polyculture, intercropping, mulching, bio lakes etc with collective work as a community, including people with social or physical disadvantages to ensure financial sustainability of the initiative.