The Border: Resisting monocultures in Central Italy

Abstract

A new border between those who are seeking to divides the rural peripheries of central Italy, a border between those seeking to safeguard a varied agricultural landscape and those hoping for easy money. According to the “Italy Hazelnut Plan”, 20,000 hectares of new hazelnut plantations are planned in central Italy alone, but the globalization of the agricultural model based on large monocultures represents a problem of global dimensions and is described by Donna Haraway and Anna L. Tsing as “plantationocene”, accelerating climate change, impoverishes local economic fabrics and pollutes soils and aquifers. The documentary portrays a group of people trying to resist the multiple effects of monocrops, building alternative economies and buying land to remove them from the sphere of influence of multinational companies.