I realise I’ve been taking grass for granted. It’s hay-making time in Italy, and every valley, meadow, and road verge is being baled to feed stock. If you think Australian farmers take their tractors to dangerous places, you should see the hills they’re working on here. I’ve been wondering how many round bales bounce across the roads and end up in the rivers.
I have actually seen very few animals grazing outside: a flock of Cornigliese sheep, four horses, five Friesian bulls, and a herd of black pigs. I think it’s for a few reasons. Firstly, some areas get a lot of snow in winter, so there’d be no grass and the animals would get thin in the cold. If the animals grazed, farmers would need bigger farms to rotate the paddocks – but the farms are mostly small and there’s little room to move. And I think some of it is because of tradition and tastes.
Andrea Mongiorgi has a large farm business at Castelfranco near Modena. It’s a mixed farm, growing grass and maize for fodder, grain for pasta flour, vegetables, grapes, and beef.
When I visited his stable, he told me Italians don’t like the flavour of grass-fed beef – so the cattle are fed only hay and maize. Dairy cows used for Parmigiano Reggiano production cannot be fed fresh feed because it can cause fermentation in the milk and ruin the cheese.
Andrea’s main operation is producing fodder for farmers who are part of the local Parmigiano cooperative. There are 1,300 cows in the cooperative and their milk makes 70 wheels of Parmigiano every day. The good thing about the cooperative is that farmers with tiny farms can participate. In the mountains, we drove through villages with tiny stables right on the road with less than 10 cows in them. Whether these businesses are profitable, is another question.
In Andrea’s region, the Bianca (white) Modenese is the local breed of cattle. It’s a dual-purpose breed (meat and milk), but in the past was also used for farm work. Andrea keeps these, and a few cross-breds, just for beef production. The cattle are killed when they are at least two years old. The Bianca Modenese is considered a rare breed, but I had trouble communicating with Andrea about this. He didn’t seem too worried about its future.
I was a bit surprised at Andrea’s cross-breds. He had a number of Belgium Blue crossed with Friesian – producing a very lean beef. He told me that Italians want lean meat, but the locals want more fat. Andrea suggested that people in the cities don’t have a great understanding about the different kinds and qualities of beef.
Andrea sells all his beef through his farm shop. The animals are killed off-site, but his butchery is large and clean and he showed me the carcasses hanging in the coolroom. People can come to buy cuts of meat, parmigiano and preserves, but they can also order large mixed boxes. The economic crisis, that everyone we meet talks about, has had an impact on sales. Andrea says people are preferring to eat cheese, or are opting for cheaper, imported beef. The beef comes from France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Argentina and Brazil, and sells for about half the price.
It’s clear that eating Italian beef is a luxury for people who live in the cities, and that there is a huge industry growing the fodder to feed the animals. We are so lucky in Tasmania that we can grow grass easily, and that we have enough land to graze our animals outside. And fortunately, our tastes are moving away from grain-fed to grass-fed beef.
