News

Yesterday, Coldiretti, with whom we share our journey, celebrated its first 80 years of activity, in the presence of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella.

An organization that “upholds the principles of economic democracy based on the confrontation of ideas and proposals between political forces and representative social forces in institutional settings and with appropriate instruments and methodologies of consultation.” (from the Statutes of the National Confederation of Coldiretti)

Below is a short excerpt from the book by Fr. Francesco Occhetta and Nunzio Primavera on Paolo Bonomi, founder and first president of Coldiretti who, as John Paul II recalled, helped build an Italian society through “intense, passionate and brilliant service.” His is a story of dedication, awareness and humanity.

“The Coldiretti archives preserve many letters from farmers writing to Bonomi. A sentence in dialect from an elderly man from Catanzaro remains emblematic, exclaiming in the early 1960s, “We had neither father nor mother. Paolo Bonomi gave us his name.” It is a reflection worth dwelling on: no one has ever defined the DC as “degasperian,” or the PCI as “togliattian,” but for forty years everyone has defined Coldiretti as the “bonomiana” and as “bo-nomiani” its members. Why? By promoting a system of modern laws, Bonomi succeeded in making the “people of the fields” gain dignity and awareness of being full-fledged cit-citizens, within the dimension of civic engagement, participation and thus social emancipation.”