Description

What if transitioning to regenerative agriculture wasn’t just about changing farming techniques, but about shifting power, reclaiming autonomy, and rebuilding communities?

In this inspiring and thought-provoking episode, Carlotta Ebbreo (rural sociologist at Valdibella Practical School of Agroecology) joins us from the heart of Sicily to reimagine everything we think we know about learning, farming, and social change.

Carlotta takes us inside a groundbreaking project where farmers, scientists, technicians, and activists come together to build a new kind of school. One that’s horizontal, context-based, radically participatory, and deeply rooted in the land. From real-life case studies and peer-to-peer learning to fighting market dependency and reshaping the agri-food system, this is agroecology in action!

Whether you’re a farmer, educator, policymaker, student, or simply someone who dreams of a healthier, fairer future -> this conversation is a must-listen!

📚 We explore:

• How the Valdibella School of Agroecology is challenging traditional education systems through horizontal, participatory learning

• Why agroecology is a political act, not just a technical one

• The urgent need to decolonize knowledge systems and empower local farmers

• How practical training sessions, case studies, and cross-sector collaboration are transforming real farms across Sicily

• What it means to build a common vocabulary across disciplines—from water management to market disintermediation
  

Carlotta shares deep insights into the intersections of farming, knowledge, and justice, offering a hopeful yet radical vision for what a truly regenerative food system could look like.

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👩‍🌾 About the Guest:

Carlotta Ebbreo is a rural sociologist and educator based in Palermo, Sicily. She’s a core team member of the Valdibella Practical School of Agroecology, where she focuses on the social and political dimensions of agroecology, and supports the transition toward community-centered, resilient food systems.

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❤️ This podcast was produced in partnership with Soil Capital, a company that supports #regenerativeagriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve soil health & biodiversity.

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🔗Useful links: 

• Valdibella - https://valdibella.com/

• Deep Seed podcast - https://www.deepseed.eu/

Hosted by Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

• Speaker #0

  We went to schools or university and there were people like teaching something and people learning something. I think we need to reframe this idea of school. I think of agroecology as fight for autonomy and fight for life.

• Speaker #1

  Welcome back to the Deep Seed podcast. Last week, I had an amazing conversation with Massimiliano Solano. the president of a farming cooperative located in Sicily called Valdibella. It was the first episode of a mini-series about Valdibella, and today's episode, the one you're listening to right now, is episode two of that mini-series. This time I'm talking to Carlotta Ebreo. She's a rural sociologist, and actually the very first sociologist I'm interviewing on the podcast. I feel like it's been a bit of a blind spot for me so far, and... After this interview, I am really keen to explore this angle more in the near future. The conversation is centered around the Valdibela School of Agroecology. This school was created by the cooperative to bring together farmers, experts and community members around the topic of agroecology. They have a really cool approach as they redefine what a school can look like. here Everyone is both a teacher and a student. Everyone brings their own knowledge to the table coming from a different expertise, a different life experience, farming experience and so on. And together, it allows them to have a stronger, more holistic approach to teaching agroecology and helping farmers. Really interesting stuff. Carlotta is great and I'm sure you will enjoy this conversation. This episode was made in partnership with Soil Capital, I am your host, Raphael, and this is the Deep Seat Podcast.

• Speaker #0

  I'm Carlotta Ebreu. I grew up in Palermo and I live nearby in the mountain in a national park called Manunia. I'm trained as a rural sociologist, but I've been always working in agroecology. My role in the Valdi Bella, Scuola Pratica di Agroecologia di Valdi Bella, is I'm part of the team and I'm taking care especially of the social and political aspects of agroecology, creating a connection between what is food production and what is community production and social change.

• Speaker #1

  Great. You mentioned the School of Agroecology. Could you tell us more about this?

• Speaker #0

  La Scuola Pratica di Agroecologia di Val di Bella, so the Val di Bella Agroecology Practical School, it's a project that started some years ago and the idea is having a school that from farmer to farmer and putting together different figures like specialists, technicians, farmers, but also people working in advocacy in different communities work together in a training and education projects that support the transition to agroecology for farmers, but also the support, the transition to agroecology to technicians that could help farmers and work together with farmers in this part.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, so there's a desire to transition to agroecology from the farmers within the cooperative here in the region, but it's hard to get the knowledge across and make sure that everyone has the... latest up-to-date science and knowledge, including the technicians, including the people working on the farms. Is that it?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, what we think, what we think our consideration of agroecology is that agroecology wants to make a big change in the concept of dependency. Dependency is not just dependency to the market. It's also dependency to the knowledge system or the idea of what is knowledge and what is innovation. So... What we need is that the knowledge is contextual based and it's really linked to what are the needs of people and it has any cultural significance. So this looking for autonomy for people, it's also related to which kind of knowledge and which kind of innovation we can manage together as community, taking care of agroecology and bringing practice and practicing agroecology. it's hard to get the knowledge but sometimes it's also hard to value the knowledge and so one of the main goals of agroecology and also of our agroecological school is to value local knowledge also from different farming community but at the same time is to find approaches and methodologies that put together scientific knowledge expertise knowledge farmers knowledge techniques, and knowledge. And so we've been trained in a way that we went to schools or university and there were people like teaching something and people learning something. I think we need to reframe this idea of school and this is why we call it practical school because we start from a context, we start from community and we try to identify in which way different knowledge can collaborate together in an in an horizontal way. to create the knowledge we really need for being autonomous, for really taking care of the land and the community we want to take care of too.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, great. So there's all of this pool of knowledge going around the region with different experts, different farmers, different practitioners who all gather experiences of the land, scientific knowledge, and everyone has their own little piece of the total puzzle. But by coming together as one hub, where we can exchange that knowledge between you, you have this more holistic approach and vision of agroecology. the correct way to say.

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think like we want to be agroecology as being a practice of farming, but also a social and political movement and also a science. And so we need to put together these three levels. So we need to make these three levels dialogue. This is one of the issues. So we need also to rethinking how the way we dialogue. to be able to understand each other and to value each other. And so this is, we always say, agroecology and agroecological transition, it's a holistic part. But making holism, it's not something that happens by chance and we really need to renovate the way we build bridges between people, between kind of expertise. And this is one of the... One of the challenges of agroecology also as a pedagogic challenge, we put together at the same level these different knowledge to make this holistic change.

• Speaker #1

  Okay. And practically speaking, how does that happen here in Vall d'Iberra? How did you start the school, bring together the teacher, the different farmers? What does it look like, this holistic approach?

• Speaker #0

  What we normally do is we We start both from the needs of the cooperative members, but also from what we see the needs of the agrarian challenge that Sicilian environment is facing. And also because all the team of the agroecology school is in relation with different farmers network and farmers in Sicily. So we use this relation to dialogue and identify the topics of the school. At the same time, normally during the trainings, there are different trainers, both comes from the technical world and the academic world and the farmers world, and we have both on-field activities, project transition activities, so very practical, and also we try to bring the theoretical aspect into practical aspect. And so there are parts of giving space, facilitating space of dialogue, where all participants can really put into a critical view what they are practicing and what they think they are their knowledge into the knowledge we are discussing. So they are like circle of discussion, for example, case studies that farmers bring about how they manage their farm and how they manage their farm project as a community project. and we discuss starting from the case study farmers bring.

• Speaker #1

  Okay, very interesting. So yeah, you would have for example a farmer coming with their own case and explaining their challenges, their realities, and then you have other farmers, you have the community and you have the experts present there and everyone's contributing to a conversation about how to overcome these challenges and it's an open and respectful discussion about this which is helpful for the farmer themselves. It's helpful for the experts to understand the reality of farmers and for other farmers there, I guess, who then can learn from that discussion as well, right?

• Speaker #0

  Yeah, I think one of the goals of the training is really to work together on a common vocabulary, to make everybody in a comfortable position to speak about his or her own knowledge, he or her brings into the table. So starting from often from the the principle for example of water management or the principle of market disintermediation we try to find a common vocabulary in the first part of the training that helps people to identify the knowledge the experience the expertise they are bringing into that vocabulary so we are able to putting staying together in a common then working table to bring our knowledge and experience and to being able to be listened also by people and understood. So there are like facilitated spaces that support this horizontal change, that support this respectful change, exchange as one of the principles we need to bring. And then we also use this different support. So we also support people to bring, for example, photo bases or video or other kind of material that can help each other to understand what we are saying. And also in many practical spaces when we do, for example, the project exercise for a farm, there are really practical experiences where people can really bring what they know. So discussing, for example, We have been doing a training here in Massimiliano's farm, Massimiliano and his family farms, and we have been working here about water management and key lines. So you see a group of people divided in working group that really from difference like animal husbandry people and people coming from farming experience and agronomist, etc. They're working on different topic and goal about the... palm transition and so in common discussion and facilitated for having a respectful exchange great um one last question maybe if you could share one important message what would you pick i think as agroecology as fight for autonomy and fight for life and it's For this reason, it is very essential that no technical transition can be taught without a change in power relations. So we need to rethink all the learning and education systems for the agroecology transition, but also the work and labour systems for the agroecology transition. Because without these changes and without autonomy in the market, there will be no... technical transition that will be enough for changing and transforming this power injustice from where the agri-food system is based and we want to change.

• Speaker #1

  Fantastic. Thank you very much.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you.

• Speaker #1

  Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Until the end, I really hope you... enjoyed it. If you haven't had a chance to do that yet, please subscribe to The Deep Seed. It makes a huge difference for me and helps me continue this work of bringing stories of regenerative pioneers to your ears. It's really simple. It only takes five seconds. All you got to do is click on The Deep Seed page and click on the subscribe or follow button. Just a quick word about the official partner of The Deep Seed podcast, Sol Capital. Sol Capital is a company that accelerates the transition to regenerative agriculture by financially rewarding farmers who improve things like soil health and biodiversity. Thank you for listening and see you next week for episode three of the Val di Bella series.