Check out this article by NPR highlighting a movement of small cooperatives in Sicily leading agricultural reform on land once controlled by the Mafia:
In recent years, the effort to bring the Mafia under control in Sicily has spilled over into the world of food. Today a movement of small organic agricultural cooperatives has sprung up across the island to farm land once confiscated by the Mafia and bring these goods to a global market.
means free land, or land free from Mafia. A cooperative of farmers and other producers working under this banner creates organic olive oil, wine, pasta, grains and more and provides Mafia-free jobs in a country with staggering unemployment, deep-seated corruption and a rich kitchen tradition.
“It’s very difficult to buy something to eat here in Sicily and be sure that it has nothing to do with the Mafia,” says Gabrielle Mastrilli. “When you eat food with the Libera Terra label, you are sure that the product and the worker, they don’t have anything to do with the Mafia.”
