The Extraordinary Italian Agricultural Reform of 1950, and How a Similar One Failed in Peru in 1969

Visiting Reggio Emilia, you can get overtaken by a famer driving a classic Ferrari, in a day of sunshine through the flat yellow fields that get overflowed by the waters of the river Po, thanks to all the kilometers of channel networks. It is not just a symbol of social and economic progress, but this was the consequence of the 1950 law Sila and Stralcio, who had Alcide De Gasperi as the great designer of what will be called the Italian Miracle! Taking away big portions of land from little owners who continued believing, for convenience, in the Feudalism as the only possible system to give work and to eat to millions of Italians.

Fractions of lands after these two laws in 1950 would be given to old farm workers/slaves, and would create cooperatives to help share expenses to make research and find a quality product, as a result:

Grana Padano, Parmigiano Reggiano, Aceto Balsamico di Modena, and Lambrusco, all products that changed the living and the economy from slavery and become rich farmers, lovers of their lands and main clients of: Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Ducati, etc. These results needed to convince Juan Velasco Alvarado, General and dictator of Peru in 1969 to implement: La Reforma Agraria, a very similar concept of the Italian law of 1950, but finished and catastrophically died before it became a law. In my personal opinion, because of the racial differences in the Peruvian society, creates a wall, where even a large open gate will not let pass the native Peruvians, since for centuries they will not even try to do something as it was proven to fail. This is a tragic daily episode of the Peruvian unnatural and non-national life.

Dedicated to my dear friend:

Lenin Montanari, the poet of Bagnolo in Piano (RE)