HOW EUROPE FEEDS ITSELF

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 312, 15 June 1945, Page 23

HOW EUROPE FEEDS ITSELF

New Zealand Soldier on an Italian Farm THE most urgent of the problems facing Europe at the present moment is bread. How much can be shipped, how much can the nations themselves supply? Here is an account by a New Zealand soldier of a visit to a better-than-ordinary farm.in Italy. If this is the rate and scale of production in a grain-growing area, it is difficult to see how existing systems of tenure and cultivation can survive. The author is Pte. D. G. Edwatds, a member of the staff of Rongotai College.

N a narrow gorge running out of the Alburni mountains is a tiny village called. Galdo del Alburni. Troops of any kind are rare since the Germans left nearly a year ago. A chance meeting with an old farmer who spoke some English was the beginning. We liked him and decided to return and stay a few days to find out at first hand how he lived and to have a rest holiday. Nicolo is a reasonably well-to-do farmer. He owns two houses in a village of 30 or 40, and 13 separate pieces of land in the valley, all of them freehold, making a total of 120 acres, much larger than most of the farms in the district. The pieces vary from the main farm of 28 acres, with a large, old stone house, to small stony strips on the hillside with olive trees and a single crop. The main farm grows and stores most of the small crops. In this district the land tenure is very mixed. There is a relic of old feudal ownérship in large tracts, more particularly olive and chestnut groves on the mountain slopes, still owned by the Conte de Guisso, who lives in Salerno. A hundred years ago these aristocratic families owned and operated thuge estates, but to-day gain only incidental revenue from the residue, usually’ single crop areas. Other absentee landlords, including the Church, own land which is rented, usually in small pieces, to the villagers. ‘Very Few Landowners The members of the village live almost solely off the land. A few services such as barbers and three or four shops serve the large number who work in the fields. Of these, a very few, like Nicolo, own their own land, the remainder renting it from the few landlords, The rent is often paid with the products by a simple system of half into the owner’s barn and half to the farmer’s house as it is harvested. It seems certain that a family working a rented farm would never be able to own one. The sale of land is rare and values are almost impossible to assess in terms of money at present, but it is plain that a farmer working rented land makes no more than a bare living at a low standard for very long hours of work. The freehold land is owned by men who have inherited it or, by no means uncommon in this province, by men returned from America with a few hundred dollars. Land when inherited tends to be split into pieces and this possibly ‘accounts for the scattered nature of many farms, though it may be a relic of old feudal "strip" farming. Nicolo one day pointed out a piece of land the size of a football field which he had inherited from his father, together with one room of an old stone house used as a storehouse. Money wages are paid, of course, usually by the large landowners, for day labour," for harvesting, pressing grapes or olives, carting or building work. An. ordinary labourer

earns 45-50 lire a day (2/3-2/6), but it is very difficult to assess its value at present rates, as prices are so inflated. For instance, matches are very scarce and, when available, fetch 40 lire for a small box. Community Spirit An interesting feature of the labour problem in the village is the willingness to help each other without thought of money wages. Francesco, the eldest son, is a bootmaker of sorts and one day a nearby farmer called to have some clogs mended. While Francesco did this, the owner of the clogs continued the scything of some hay, this being the only way he had of paying for the work. Similarly the tobacco picking required the assistance of girls and it was found that Nicolo and Francesco had helped a man with his grain and so his daughters helped Nicolo with the tobacco. The question of balancing the work did not seem to arise and, if work had to be done, someone would help. One girl had a widowed mother and during the winter Nicolo gave her some food and the girl always helped him when he was busy. Many examples could be quoted of this attitude of cooperation and good community spirit. The 20-acre patch with the old house is the principal part of Nicolo’s farm. The remainder is mainly single crop fields requiring little attention. On the main farm all the small specialised crops are grown and practically all the storage and work is done there. On this small area we saw crops of wheat, barley, maize, tobacco, grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, peppercorn, sunflowers, broad beans, cabbage, silver beet, melons, pumpkins, carrots, onions, gherkins. This was in fact a large family garden. The trees included olives, pears, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, walnuts, almonds, chesnuts, figs, mulberries. The family lives fairly well off these crops, while windfalls and defectives feed the poultry and pigs. The "Pool" System | The surplus products are sold. Previously they were disposed of in nearby markets, but now they are commandeered under the "pool" system. Quantities of grain, potatoes and nuts are kept, while figs, pears, peaches and apricots are very crudely sun-dried and, with suitable vegetables, are all stored for the winter. According to Nicolo there will be a surplus this year, estimated roughly at 400 kilos of wheat, 200 kilos of barley, 80 kilos of maize, 400 kilos of tobacco, 100 kilos of olive oil and 200 kilos of wine. There would not be the usual potato surplus. A guess at the total income of these crops was 14-000-15,000 lire (£37/10/-); out of this the commodities to be bought, if available, would be clothes, boots, salt, sugar, coffee, farm tools, lime, etc. There will be little opportunity of buying these things, particularly clothing. The stock on the farm at present is one . (continued on-next page)

ON AN ITALIAN FARM

(continued from previous page) cow (the Germans took two good ones last year), one heifer, two working bullocks, five goats, 32 sheep, a sow, a boar, two porkers and five piglets, five fowls and a number of chickens, a donkey and two dogs. None of the animals were in good condition, probabiy due to the effects of the mid-summer weather. The cows, goats and sheep are taken into the hills each day for grazing, to be returned each night and housed on the ground floor of the farmhouse. In winter they are housed and fed hard feed with occasional foraging spells outside. The animals provide food in the form of milk (not used fresh), cheese, bacon

and eggs. Meat of any kind-is very rarely eaten. The sheep are shorn and a rough yarn is spun by hand. Harvesting the Crops The grain crops are sown in November, and harvested in June-July. They are cut by a sickle and tied into small "stooks" which are threshed .on a circular concrete or stone slab about 20 feet in diameter. Sometimes the usual flail is used, but I saw a straight stick also being employed. Then the rough straw is pitched outwards, and, finally, is piled outside, where it is made up into huge bundles in sacking and carried on the girls’ heads to a barn or stack for the winter. There is still a heap of grain and husks on the threshing ring, and, to clear this, it is pitched for hours high into the air whenever a breeze springs up. The husks and light straw blow into a large heap outside the ring, and.the grain remains. This: is finally . sieved, carted inside, and stored in heaps, as sacks are very scarce, All the straw is used for stock food, and: the husks for floor .covering for the stock in winter. Even then, its usefulness is not lost, as it is dug back into the ground when it is dirty. The same thing is done with the straw stumps left standing in the fields, which. are all gathered and stacked when harvesting is over. The threshing of maize cobs is done much

later, but follows a similar tedious manual process. The cob stumps are used for fuel. The tobacco is planted from seedlings early in May, and for a few months has to be carefully hoed and weeded. In August the leaves are ready for picking. The larger ones are plucked by hand, leaving the smaller ones at the top of the plants to be gathered in second pickings. The leaves are placed loosely on trays carried by the girls on their heads to a storeroom where, the same day, they are threaded with long steel needles on to a string. This is a long, tedious job. Tobacco which takes about four hours to pick requires about eight hours

to thread. The strings are tied on to wooden frames and the leaves dry in the sun for eight days, hung inside for a few weeks and then baled in sacks. As a crop there is terrific labour involved, but it does bring in a lump sum of money. The leaves, even by New Zealand standards, were small, but the quality of the little we tried was fair for smoking. Crop Rotation A rough form of crop rotation is employed. It is not scientific or planned, but the small patches are used for different crops as far as possible. The variety includes only grain, tomatoes, bean crops, and tobacco, and very occasionally a field may be left fallow for a season. The cultivation is so intensive that there is practically no weed problem. Blackberry is common, but never out of control. The ground is regularly built up by the hoeing of any available green stuff, the messy straw from the stables in winter and, when available, a little lime. The only crop which showed signs of sickness while we were there was a small area of grapevines which had produced a few bunches of very small grapes. , Family Life The family life ‘is of interest, as it has many features common to a large (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) number of people we met. Nicolo is a widower. On his return from the United States 30 years ago, after a stay of 11 years, he bought his farm, married and settled down. His wife died ten years ago, leaving a family of nine. The grown-up members of the family are scattered. One son emigrated to the United States and is now in the Army on the Pacific coast. Another is a prisoner of war still in England and a third is discharged from the Italian Army and helps Nicolo at home. Two daughters are married and both live in the village. One, Filomena, together with her husband and two small children, occupies Nicolo’s second village house. The other, Antoinetta, seems to have "married well’ and her husband has a fairly large farm some distance from the village. The remaining members are Rosina (19), Orlando (16), Pasquale (14) and Elvira (11), who, with Nicolo and Francesco, work the farm. During the summer Nicolo, Francesco and Pasquale live in the old house down on the farm, and the girls live inthe house in the village, but nearly all meals are taken on the farm. Each day during our stay Rosa and Orlando would arrive on the farm about six o’clock and begin work, Rosa attending to the house and the animals and Orlando picking tobacco leaves, while Nicolo and Francesco began building a straw stack or digging potatoes. Pasquale gathered his goats, cows and sheep and set off with a few ragamuffin cobbers for the day’s grazing, while little Elvira would arrive about eight or nine o’clock, perhaps with Filomena’s children and do odd jobs about the house and garden. This work continued until about ten o'clock, when Rosa had a meal of cooked vegetables or macaroni ready, and everybody sat down, and each dipped into a common bowl with a fork and a chunk of dry brown bread, After the meal, everyone returned to work, which continued without a break until eight or eight-thirty in the evening, when a similar meal is served. Then the girls set off for the village, where they did a few odd jobs about the housé, such as preparing bread or making cheese, afid finally to bed at ten-thirty. This routiné continued day after day except Sundays, when time was taken off for Church and rest during the afternoon, ; Women as Burden Carriers Another interesting feature was the heavy work done by the women. All the heavy lifting and carrying was done by therh while the men walked behind empty handed. On the next farm a man was doing some building with stone, and four girls about 15 or 16 years old did all the carrying of the stones. They carried two large stones at a time, each about the size of a football, on their heads some 400 yards all day long. No cart, no wheelbarrow, just very cheap and effective labour, Nicolo’s daughter Orlando, aged 16, on one day worked from six a.m. to ten a.m. picking tobacco leaves, had about half-an-hour off for a meal, and then resumed her labours with hardly a break till eight. p.m. threading the leaves on strings for drying. During this long period she ate only a fewshandfuls of plums and a couple of pears. After the evening meal

she carried grain in a large basket on her head half-a-mile up a rough stony track to the village. It took two of us to lift the basket off her head and a rough estimate of its weight was 6070lb. She was accompanied by a grownup, able-bodied brother. In the house, also, the women are disregarded and go about their work while the men sit and talk. It never occurs to them to ask for help in any task. "Nothing to Do Except Work" In spite of this, we felt that Rosa at least realised what sort of life was possible under happier circumstances. She told us she was sorry we were leaving and that it would be good to get back to camp to good food and comfortable

quarters. We explained we had been very comfortable and had enjoyed ourselves very much. She shrugged and explained that the village ‘was dirty, which was true, and there was nothing to do except work, and all she had to look forward to was a few years of hard work, matriage, a large family, and an old age in the village. She was also concerned because Elvira; a bright, intelligent, attractive child, would probably not be able to get much education. We felt there was real feeling in the very pathetic and certainly penetrating prophecy. Their future is certainly full of hope for a better life if the economic system can be re-organised; but there is also the certainty of a long struggle before this is achieved.