Permaculture Projects in Italy?

Hello,

Me and two others will be traveling to Italy this summer, among a few other places. I would really, really love to visit some permaculture projects and meet some people. I live in a climate that is increasingly Mediterranean (especially in summer) and would love to learn from what people are doing there. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. Thank you!

For a bioagriturismo experience, we recently stayed at an olive farm called Poderaccio in Incisa, in Valderno, in the Tuscany region of Italy. They have 1,000 olive trees, a large garden, offer pasta making classes, and belong to a co-op of regenerative farmers in the area.

We experienced their solar power, well water, recycling and regeneratively grown produce while we stayed in a remodeled 18th century farmhouse. Francesca is the contact on site.

Here is the contact info from the closing lines of her email:

Azienda Agricola Biologica Poderaccio
bioagriturismo di Francesca Bellacci
località San Michele 15
50063 Figline Incisa Valdarno
FIRENZE - Italia
P.IVA (VAT): 04939230480
COD FISC:  BLLFNC69M61D612K
COD. SDI:  SUBM70N
Tel: +39 3487804197
www.agripoderaccio.it
follow our activities on www.facebook.com/Poderaccio organic farmhouse
www.instagram.com/poderaccio_farmhouse/

Thank you for the information! I reached out. Did you rent a car to get to her?

We took a train from Rome to Florence, changed trains and disembarked at the Incisa train stop.

Francesca picked the 3 of us up in her truck and we stayed with her 2 nights. She drove us to a nearby town and we rented bicycles for a day, then she picked us up again after the bike trek.

At the end of the visit, Francesca drove us back to the train station. She was so kind and provided excellent customer service.

We spent a week in Italy in 3 different regions, and all agreed the experience at her farm was the highlight of our trip.

In the compendium in the apartment we rented at Poderaccio, I found listings for regional festivals organized by month. Here are pictures of the selections. You can zoom in to see details.

There are quite a few farms and projects that are worth visiting but most will require a vehicle:

- l'Asino e la luna: located in Cerveteri about 45mins north of Rome along the coast. They are mostly focusing on water and have interesting collaborations with local companies that have sponsored the install and maintenance of many fruit trees in their food forests.
- la scoscesa which is owned and operated by lorenzo Costa who is a member on here as well. Located in gaiola in chianti near Siena. It's an olive grove with vegetable production on very rocky and steep terrain. Lorenzo is the main reference on water management in Italy so he has done a lot of water related enhancements on his property
- ortoforesta run by Dario cortese near Florence with intense veggie production.
- AZ agricola isidi near Lago di Iseo in northern Italy is a beautiful project run by Matteo mazzola, does many interesting things.

I'm not sure you can stay at any of these but might be worth asking. Quite a lot of YouTube content on several of these, perhaps the auto translated subtitles could help you learn more.