My name is Nadia Ginocchio. After obtaining a degree as an accountant in 1988, I worked in the maritime sector on recreational boats for twenty years. In 2014, I was offered an opportunity to start a new experience with the Cooperativa Agricola Rurale Isola di Borgonovo which revolutionised my life and brought me back to my roots. At the age of 45, I was able to realise the dream of having a job that since I was a girl, my grandfather and father had taught me to love: being a farmer. My family, starting with my grandfather Luì, taught me as a young girl to respect the work that a farmer does in this job 365 days a year and enjoy the satisfaction of the fruits of our labour. For my sister and I, it was normal to collect hazelnuts, grapes, olives, and chestnuts on Saturdays and Sundays depending on the season. Then, in the evening we would meet up with friends in the village square to play soccer. I never called it a real job, to me it was almost always a special day where the whole family and often friends would get together. I still remember that around lunchtime my grandmother Delia would bring us a baciocca or rice cake that she had cooked on an open fire. The birth of my daughter, Asia, in 2006 contributed a lot to our decision to permanently move to our country house. I wanted her to grow up in a simple environment right from the start, close to my dad so that he could also transmit to her our love for this land. I must admit that it has been the best gift I have given her. The main challenge I had to face was perhaps the one inside myself. I asked myself, “Will I succeed? Will I really enjoy living like this?,” etc. I would have to say that so far, I have not yet regretted my decision. Mario, the Cooperative’s president, has taught me that the social purpose of a cooperative is that of collaboration and exchange. In fact, the Cooperative proved to be a source of stability for many members. Right from the start, we concentrated our energies on the enhancement and recovery of our land. Our agricultural work is diversified according to the seasons: from January to April we mainly prune, fertilise, and cut the grass under the trees, as well as bottle our extra virgin olive oil; from the end of August to September we harvest the hazelnuts; and at the end of September the olive harvest and milling season begins. Milling the olives extends until January or February depending on the season. Each of us has a well-defined role even if for some jobs we often work side by side and help each other. I mainly handle the sales, accounting and financial management of customers and suppliers, and product labelling. Mario works with foreign customers, manages the agricultural production and mill operation and maintenance. Whereas the other men, Luigi, Dino, Simone, Dario, and Riccardo take care of maintaining the hazelnut and olive groves as well as harvesting olives.

The Cooperativa Agricola Rurale Isola di Borgonovo was established on July 27, 2005. It started as a seasonal oil mill that produced oil for it members. In September 2014, at the beginning of a disastrous oil season, a new president was voted (Mario Dodici) and a new board of directors. Oil production started immediately perhaps even a bit tenuously with the production of extra virgin olive oil with olives bought from Leiden, Spain given that the olives throughout Italy were deemed unsuitable for oil production. Three tanks were bought and used to deposit the oil that was produced and still without a bottling machine, 5000 liters of oil were bottled by hand. We have fought since the beginning to provide truthful information to the consumer by indicating the origin of the olives on the label and perhaps this immediately rewarded us in sales. One of our primary objectives is to protect and enhance the rural territory upon which our products are grown. An example is promoting and supporting the recovery of abandoned olive groves. In 2015, we began the restoration of a DOP olive grove of about 8000 square meters in the hills of Lavagna that had been abandoned for about 13 years. After five years of work and fertilization, we began producing oil from these olives in 2020. The recovery of the olive grove was done entirely with our resources and resulted in us winning first prize as the best olive grove in the municipality of Lavagna for two consecutive years (2020 and 2021). To date the Cooperative manages three DOP certified olive groves, along with some of our members who manage their own family olive groves in addition to those of third parties. All of these olive groves are certified for the production of DOP Riviera Ligure-Riviera Levante extra virgin olive oil extracted mainly from Lavagnina cultivar olives which have a fruity flavor. Even one of our members, thanks to the support of the Cooperative, has begun the procedure to convert to organic farming. For us all of this is a ambitious goal and a starting point to make our somewhat forgotten territory known. A territory that is difficult to farm but has incomparable charm. We see our work as a way to enhance this land, its farming culture and authenticity of its products. Over time, thanks in part to the Rural Development Plan, we have equipped ourselves with a tractor and a tank for the disposal of water used in the milling process, a bottler, two new malaxers to mill olives (we now have a total of six), and in addition to the normal oil storage barrels, we purchased two nitrogen barrels for the conservation of DOP oil. In 2019, we purchased the warehouse our mill is located in, made improvements to make the premises safe, created a new store inside the warehouse, and built a temperature-controlled fireproof room to conserve oil to support our dedication to the quality of our products. Since 2105, the Cooperative has been increasingly active in the conservation of hazelnuts: collecting and marketing the “Misto Chiavari” hazelnuts which encourages hazelnut grove owners to recover their abandoned trees. In the spring of 2015, we collaborated with the mycology department of the University of Genoa to plant two pilot plantings of truffles in our hazelnut groves, mycorrhizing the roots of the hazelnut groves, and later we organized a seminar on restoring hazelnut groves in a manner that would encourage the introduction of truffles. The purpose of the Cooperative is social development, and we are proud of our direct collaboration with our members, but also with those who well produce the final products and our customers who appreciate our products more and more. Currently, the Cooperative is made up of 320 members. We do not use an irrigation system. Our hazelnut trees are only sustained by rainwater because they are native to this area and resistant to drought. The hazelnut trees are grown naturally with grass growing underneath them as a natural form of fertilization and to allow the native micro-fauna to flourish. We do not use pesticides or herbicides. The larger pieces of wood from pruning olive and hazelnut trees are used as firewood. The small pieces remain in the field to nourish the soil with organic matter. We have eight employees who all have the same hourly agricultural contract. We do not have disabled workers, but in recent years we participated in a six-month social project with the nonprofit Terra Madre to help integrate into the world of work foreign and Italian young men whose circumstances made them difficult to employ.