>From the New York Times (I can't make this stuff up). :^)
Matt Murray
mattm@optonline.net
For the total Rally book and information,
go to http://www.goss.com/rally.htm
and type in "MU01" for a ten percent discount.
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Adopt a Sheep, for Friend or Dinner Companion
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/technology/18ITAL.html
November 18, 2000
ANVERSA DEGLI ABRUZZI JOURNAL
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
ANVERSA DEGLI ABRUZZI, Italy In a new twist on long-distance
adoptions, sheep lovers can now select their pick of the flock over
the Internet. A $154 contract entitles adoptive "parents" to a
year's supply of their chosen one's merino wool and fresh cheese,
as well as a photograph and adoption papers.
The less sentimental can also choose to receive their adopted pet
in the form of lamb chops.
The sheep adoption program was created by a farmers' cooperative
in a medieval village in Abruzzo, a mountainous region in central
Italy that has become one of the more depopulated parts of the
country as traditional sheep farming dwindles and young people move
to the cities.
"People have tended sheep in this area for the last 2,000 years,
and we want it to continue for another 2,000," said Manuela Cozzi,
who with her husband's family runs an organic sheep cooperative and
an "agritourism" inn in Anversa degli Abruzzi. "Sheep around here
are in danger of becoming an endangered species, and we hope this
initiative will help prevent that."
The cooperative farm Mrs. Cozzi runs with her husband has 1,300
sheep. The local sheep farmers' association has 40,000. In all,
Abruzzo has 350,000 sheep; at its height, before World War I, the
region boasted more than 3 million.
Mrs. Cozzi, who sells her organic, hand-made, smoked ricotta and
wool socks by fax and over the Internet, said she sent her raw wool
to her hometown, near Florence, to be spun or worked by local
artisans because that cottage industry has all but died out in her
area of Abruzzo.
Her flock is tended by three shepherds from Macedonia, immigrants
whom she credits with saving the farm since Italians are no longer
willing to do the work. Her sheep feast on juniper and wild fennel,
mint and oregano across vast, brambled pastures in the foothills of
Mount Cocullo, part of Abruzzo National Park.
"We feel a little isolated out here, which is why we wanted to use
adoption to bring clients closer," she explained. She said she
encouraged new "parents" to visit their sheep and stay at her inn
to learn how to make fresh ricotta by hand.
Since she started the adoption campaign last month, Mrs. Cozzi
said, more than 100 applications have been received, ranging from a
Muslim butcher to a college student.
Daniele Romano, 25, a civil engineering student in Bologna who
adopted two sheep and named one Franca after his mother and the
other Deborah after his sister, said: "I am an environmentalist,
and adopting a sheep seemed as good an idea as any. I tried to
convinced my friends that they should do the same, but there were
more who laughed than who adopted."
Italy's minister of agriculture, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, adopted
a ewe he named Medina. His action, however, drew complaints from an
Italian children's rights organization, Friends of Children, which
protested that long-distance adoption should be reserved for needy
humans. He pledged to look into such programs for children.
Local residents, as well as environmental groups, argue that the
depopulation of mountainous regions in Italy and across Europe is a
human problem. Villages like Anversa degli Abruzzi, where the
population of 290 is about a 10th of what it was 50 years ago, are
essentially old-age communities. In Castrovalla, a medieval hamlet
of Anversa degli Abruzzi perched high on San Nicola mountain, one
child was born in January. It was the first birth in the hamlet in
26 years; the parents had recently moved home from Rome.
The United Nations has declared 2002 the Year of Mountains, and
there is a growing movement in Europe to try to preserve mountain
communities. "Agricultural activity protects and stabilizes the
environment, and it is what gives diversity, character and culture
to these parts of Europe," said Frank Gaskell, president of
Euro-Montana, a Brussels-based international association. "In a
global age when people are bombarded with homogenization, the last
reservoir for genuine products and European culture is the mountain
communities."
Mrs. Cozzi's farm produces fragrant cheeses, using their sheep's
non-pasteurized milk. The adoption contract includes 11 pounds of
sharp pecorino cheese, 6.5 of ricotta and a choice of raw wool or
knitted hiking socks. Organic fertilizer made of sheep manure is
also part of the adoption package. So are sausages, sheep's brains
and legs of lamb. Seventy-five percent of the flock is destined for
a tidy white slaughterhouse behind the main barn. Mrs. Cozzi is not
squeamish about killing off her woolly charges.
"I would never eat meat from a butcher, but I am not a
vegetarian," she explained. "I eat meat, but only if it is from one
of ours."
New sheep owners find this harder to accept.
"I know that in Abruzzo, lamb is a traditional dish," said Luigi
Marangoni, 53, a Milan-based ceramics executive, who traveled to
Anversa delgi Abruzzi and adopted a baby sheep of his own. "But I
first saw my little lamb prancing in the green hills, and now I
cannot think of him in another, perhaps tastier, state."
The New York Times on the Web
http://www.nytimes.com
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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