I started working in 1977 as an employee at a car repair shop and in 1984 I decided to join the family farm to continue the work that my grandfather and father had started. What I like the most about my job is always being in contact with nature and its wonderful rules. I'm responsible for the zootechnical part and serve as the legal representative of Caseificio Sociale Castellazzo, a cooperative where Parmigiano Reggiano is produced using the milk from twelve farms, belonging to members of the same cooperative. As a child, I would go out on the farm with my father and he ultimately taught me everything I know about raising cows. The machinery today is more modern in order to make the work easier and reduce costs, but the procedures are the same as those used by my grandfather and my father, as is the commitment needed to produce a premium quality cheese. There are four of us in the everyday team. I'm in charge of the farm, assisted by Mr Surjit. We check that our cows have everything they need and that they're always in an excellent physical condition. Our role is also to ensure that they have food and water available and that the barn is clean. Guido is the production manager, who works with his son Mirco on the land where we get the hay for our cows. They plough the land in autumn in order to plant the crops, they make sure that the plants aren't attacked by pests, and they check whether they need watering during the driest periods of the year. What's more, they take care of the harvest, which begins approximately three months after planting. The idea of joining CrowdFarming stems from the wish to have a stronger connection with the consumers of our cheese and to publicise our product, which is the fruit of so much passion and sacrifice.

The farm is called Societá Agricola Rondini Roberto e Bennati Guido s.s. and is located in the province of Reggio Emilia. We’ve been producing milk for Parmigiano Reggiano for two generations now. My father started working on the farm in 1954, initially as a sharecropper, and in 1968 became the owner. In 1984, I started running it with my brother-in-law Guido. On our eighty hectares, we produce alfalfa and forage wheat to feed our cows. Around our farm there are many other alfalfa fields and cattle grazing pastures, as well as some vineyards and cereal fields. Raising the cows directly employs four people, while our dairy for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano employs twelve people. The water we use is taken from a well on the farm and is used to give water to the animals and wash the milking systems. The daily consumption is approximately 100 litres for each adult cow and 30-40 litres for young animals. As for the cultivated land, alfalfa and forage wheat do not generally need irrigation and this is only ever done in particularly dry years, using sprinkler irrigation systems. The farm has no organic certification, but we try to be as sustainable as possible in our production, growing mainly alfalfa on the sixty-five hectares, ploughing the soil once every four years and using livestock waste instead of chemical fertilisers. Forage wheat is produced on the other fifteen hectares. The soil tillage is light. Pesticide treatments are very scarce (generally once every four years), with herbicides before planting the alfalfa. They are only used in extreme and specific cases or if all other methods fail to prevent damage to the cultivated plants. In all cases, we always respect the legally established times before harvest. The alfalfa is planted every four years and enriches the soil with nitrogen. In the fifth year, the forage wheat is planted, which benefits from the nitrogen provided by the alfalfa, so it doesn't require the use of fertilisers. We try to respect animal welfare as far as possible when raising the cows. We don't carry out routine antibiotic treatments, unless strictly necessary and unavoidable, while we use vaccines to prevent our cows from catching diseases. What's more, the internal regulations of the cheese factory to which we deliver the milk force us to carry out analyses to check compliance with the parameters required by Parmigiano Reggiano regulations (acidity, somatic cells, etc.) Cheese production is a very complex process and involves many steps. The evening milk is placed into tanks where the cream is naturally separated from the milk overnight. In the morning, 50% of the naturally skimmed milk overnight is used and 50% of morning-fresh whole milk is added. It is warmed for half an hour at 42-43 °C, adding 30-35 litres of whey from the previous day and the rennet. The rennet used is of animal origin, as established by Parmigiano Reggiano production guidelines. After warming, the curd is broken manually and within twenty minutes the fragments of curd precipitate and knit together. With a wooden shovel, the product formed at the bottom of the tank is extracted and divided into two pieces. These pieces are put in a room where they are turned eleven times for three days and then salted in brine for twenty days. After the process is finished, the cheese pieces are transferred to the warehouse for ageing. By giving all the milk we produce to the cooperative for the production of Parmigiano Reggiano and using the entire harvest of alfalfa and forage wheat to feed our cows, the only waste we produce is the cattle manure that we use to fertilise our land.