The Agroecology Law
The Agroecology Law
The Sicilian Region is the first Region in Italy and in Europe to have equipped itself with a law that regulates agroecological companies and establishes the basic criteria to facilitate the transition towards this important milestone in the evolution of agricultural models and ecological and social connections.
A law that is due, fundamentally, to the will and determination of a member of parliament of the Regional Assembly of Sicily (ARS) who was able to build a network of skills that could translate her idea into law: that of creating a legislative system capable of facilitating the transition of agricultural companies towards a model of production and creation of services that respect Nature.
This path, which began in January 2017, saw the member of parliament Valentina Palmeri put forward this idea, propose it at a series of meetings, including at the headquarters of the ARS, build a careful and complex network of skills that allowed her to translate her objective but also her dream into law.
From these meetings, over time, what has now become the Coordinamento Agroecologia Sicilia was born, a Third Sector Body, which not only followed with her the process of DDL 533 of 02 April 2019, concerning “Actions to defend health, the ecosystem of biodiversity and the quality of Sicilian agricultural products” but allowed the approval of L.R. 21 of 29 July 2021 on “Provisions on agroecology, protection of biodiversity and Sicilian agricultural products and technological innovation in agriculture. Rules on maritime state concessions” the construction of the implementing Decrees which today allow full application of the Law on Agroecology.
Without Valentina Palmeri’s foresight today, we would not have this law, but we certainly would not have all the planning that the Agroecology Coordination, which she herself wanted, has put in place, such as the Mediterranean Agroecology Congress in Agrigento in 2025, the Memoranda of Understanding with other Associations and Bodies, the promotion of some Municipalities towards the Agroecological Transition and countless other actions.
Now the point has been made to a chapter that does not represent a goal achieved but the beginning of a very complex process in which the former parliamentarian and the Sicilian Agroecology Coordination, together with the other organizations with which she dialogues, must become proponents of an idea of a Mediterranean that must move towards a new era of Peace between the people who inhabit it and between them and the Nature that hosts them.
Guido Bissanti