IT03 – FATTORIA GIUNTOLI

IDENTIFICATION OF THE CASE STUDY

Case study number: IT-03

Name of the farm/organization: Fattoria Giuntoli / Giuntoli Farm

Title of the case study:

A social vegetable garden for psychiatric patients

MAIN DATA

Country

Italy

Year of establishment

1978

Target groups

Psychiatric patients

Type of farm

Polyfunctional farm / precision agriculture

Size (in hectares)

100 ha

Numbers of employees from target groups

Number of members from target groups using services without employment

Sources they live from

Agriculture and animal husbandry / sale of meat and products of the farm / farmhouse

Innovative / not innovative

Innovative

Websites

www.fattoriagiuntoli.it/index.html

www.facebook.com/fattoria.giuntoli

www.youtube.com/channel/UCmwi22fTsh76cvDjbGkPB3A

Social Garden activities

DESCRIPTION

The farm was founded in 1978 by Santino and Anna Giuntoli. Initially specializing in cereal processing, it gradually expanded its areas of work, becoming a multifunctional farm. Since the 2000s, the farm has specialized in red meat production. Gradually the children started working on the farm and the parents invested more and more thanks to funding. They opened the farmhouse, the product processing workshop and increased sales. The special features of the farm are the production of zero waste food, from producer to consumer. In addition, the specialization of the Sod Seeding technique, where no plough is used, the roots are therefore much more fertile. State-of-the-art cultivation system in our area. This type of cultivation generates much richer soil and produce, without adding chemicals, thus optimizing the soil and product quality. The farm is also involved in the 'contorti' project in collaboration with the municipality and the Troia psychiatric hospital. Contorti means twisted in english. Twisted is a curious word in italian, in one sense because it has a double meaning. Contorto in Italian means crooked, wrong or twisted. The word contains within it the word garden, which was the pivotal activity of the project, a social garden, in which socially disadvantaged people worked, metaphorically 'twisted' people. The project consisted of hiring psychiatric patients on a temporary basis, who were employed in the cultivation of the garden in all its phases, up to the final product.

POSITIVE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Specifically,” the social garden project was a success for the patients who took part in it. Each of them had great satisfaction in receiving a work contract, signing the pay slip and receiving their salary. The downside was that the patients' job placement was interrupted at the end of the project. This is because there is no self-sufficiency in employment for psychiatric patients, also because the pathologies are so diverse and variable, that even the state has difficulty in identifying single guidelines for employment for all”. (Santino)

As far as the company in general is concerned, throughout its development and all activities, one of the strengths of the Giuntoli farm is its ability to constantly reinvent itself and constantly reinvest. The owners started with 100 hectares of inherited land and a small house, and today they have two product processing workshops, a livestock stable, a warehouse and a farmhouse. They have never had the need to find alternative activities. They have always been able to reduce costs and increase revenues. “The best success was just believing in those 100 hectares and making much more, also investing in technology”. (Gabriele, Santino’s son) The machinery is all high-tech, so much so that the employees also work for third parties, processing other land. They use Weather Sheds that use GPS to predict the weather, and they also use applications such as HORT@, which allows them to predict soil diseases, and other systems, based on algorithms that help them decide when to sow, increasing the efficiency of cultivation.

Giuntoli family

OBSTACLES AND HOW TO OVERCOME

“The costs for the socio-occupational integration of disadvantaged people are high, as they need staff to guide them in their work. The support of farmers and agriculturists alongside patients is crucial not only to start cultivation, but throughout the whole process. Moreover psychiatric patients have great mood swings from one day to the next, which affect the group and the whole work team. For this reason it’s crucial the unpredictability of events that influence the work and tasks to be performed. In addition, it takes longer for job placement, which in any case cannot be compared to that of the able-bodied”. (Santino) “With the psychiatric patients, it took time to understand their abilities and aptitudes, the project was completed, but more time would have been needed, hence a further project with a second funding to ensure work continuity”. (Anna) “Social integration worked, because each patient had a work contract, which gratified them. Social farming projects need constant support and help from specialized bodies, especially when dealing with psychiatric patients. Our advice is to give guidelines to be followed in all phases of agricultural production, given the complexity and unpredictability of the phenomena”. (Santino)

As far as customers are concerned, the biggest difficulty the farm has encountered concerns the justification of the price. The products of the social garden cannot be priced the same as others, but the cost is inevitably higher because the product’s value, that is different. “This is not always understood by customers, who are unfortunately still skeptical”. (Santino)

RECOMMENDATIONS, ADVICE

The most important advice Santino Giuntoli gives to other farmers is above all from the point of view of motivation. "Social farming, in our area, is not a remunerative activity. Social farming is not a source of income for the farm, it is a supplementary activity, of value for the farm but not a livelihood. Either farmers follow an ethical objective because they care about it or there is no economic return”. (Santino) Another key piece of advice, which specifically concerns psychiatric patients, is the supervision of the psychiatrist, both for the choice of patients, before starting work, according to their aptitude. “But above all, for any emergency, in which a crisis occurs, help must arrive immediately. This happened several times … and the doctors arrived immediately. The presence of a trusted doctor nearby is also very important in the group dynamic, because if one is well, they are all well” (Santino).

The critical issue that the Giuntoli farm highlights is that of funding. “They cannot only be initial, for the start-up and commissioning of the social garden, in this case, but also during the development and actual work placement of the patients, because to follow psychiatric patients there is a higher cost for the farm, which it is not always able to cover. Both for the staff that has to support the patients, and for the technical equipment, protection and safety” (Santino).

PROMO

Fattoria Giuntoli is a reference point for healthy and zero-kilometer products, it has been established in the area for around 45 years, and therefore has a strong network of acquaintances in the neighbouring villages of the Monti Dauni. The type of sale it prefers is therefore on the spot. It is visitors who come to the farm to buy produce, vegetables, but above all meat. Word of mouth has been the Giuntoli farm's most popular marketing tool for years. Today, there are many more sales and promotion strategies. The Giuntoli farm has invested heavily in omnichannel strategies, in order to reach as wide a market as possible. They have a website with e-commerce, an Instagram page, managed by communication specialists. They are also registered on mangialocale.com, an e-commerce site for farm support and local, genuine and sustainable products. This platform is great because there are no intermediaries, so the revenue is maximum and the target audience wide. In addition, all product packaging has the Local Tourism QR code, it is a guarantee mark for the product, it refers to the place of production, authenticity of the product and local authenticity.

FINAL SENTENCES

Grain Harvest

“Over the next 10 years, many changes will take place”. (Anna) First of all, there will be a generational change, the farm will pass from parents to their sons. In this transformation, it will certainly be up to the new generation to deal with alternative sources of energy. “Whether or not to introduce these new energy sources is the question. We will certainly continue to invest in technology.”(Gabriele). Fattoria Giuntoli combines traditional and innovative methods: “we look at the sky to see what the weather will be like tomorrow” (Santino), the farm uses apps that monitor the weather and possible incoming soil diseases. Their specialized and rather unique tillage technique 'Sod seeding' is also applied in other cultivation areas. “Since 1978, we have always reinvented ourselves with new techniques and productions, always respecting the environment and the animals”. (Santino) “All the investments we have made in the farm have been implemented with public funding. Every time a call for tender was published for an intervention, we noticed that we had actually planned it long before”.