Women Take Center Stage at Italian EVOO Literary Competition

The win­ners of the third Ranieri Filo della Torre inter­na­tional lit­er­ary prize have been announced.

At Palazzo della Valle, in Rome, where the head­quar­ters of the gen­eral con­fed­er­a­tion of Italian agri­cul­ture, Confagricoltura, are located, 11 awards were handed out for sci­en­tific writ­ings, his­tor­i­cal essays, poetry and fic­tion.

The annual com­pe­ti­tion, which is orga­nized by Pandolea, seeks to rec­og­nize and pro­mote extra vir­gin olive oil cul­ture in lit­er­a­ture. Entries are already open for next year’s com­pe­ti­tion.

“This has been a spe­cial and much-wel­comed edi­tion marked by a grow­ing inter­est amongst par­tic­i­pants, pub­lic and experts,” Loriana Abbruzzetti, the pres­i­dent of Pandolea said. ​“The inter­na­tional open­ness of the award, with the pre­sen­ta­tion of the Mediterranean Olive Oil Women’s Network, attracted the inter­est of a wider pub­lic, and allowed us to achieve the objec­tive of our asso­ci­a­tion, which is to bring as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble [together], with no bor­ders, closer to the won­der­ful world of extra vir­gin olive oil.”

In the sci­ence cat­e­gory, Alessio Scalisi, from the University of Palermo, was one of the win­ners for his doc­toral the­sis about fruit and leaf sens­ing for the con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing of tree water sta­tus in high-den­sity orchard sys­tems.

Ana Srbinovska, from the University of Udine, also won an award for her Master’s the­sis regard­ing the deter­mi­na­tion of n‑alkanes in veg­etable oils.

Valentina Bertoz, also from the University of Udine, picked up the third award for her Bachelor’s the­sis on the eval­u­a­tion of the antiox­i­dant con­tent of veg­etable oils as a func­tion of refine­ment.

In the his­tory cat­e­gory, Elisa Maria Fiocca and Maria Grazie Caffè each picked up awards for their essays: Amori, Ulivi e ​‘Kanun’ (Loves, Olive Trees and ​‘Kanun’) and Mottola ​‘La spia dello Ionio’ (Mottola ​‘the Ionian’s spy’), respec­tively.

In the poetry sec­tion Dominga Carruba, Franca Chiappetta and Milena de Magistris von Rex each won for their poems: Del Canto (On Singing); L’ulivo (The Olive Tree) and La terra l’Uomo e quel frutto… (The Land, the Human, and that Fruit…), respec­tively.

For the fic­tion sec­tion, Amina Valentini won for Una madre e una sinolea (A Mother and a Sinolea); Antonietta Tiberia won for Il baratto (The Bartering); and Beniamino Cardines won for Il patto dell’olio (The Pact of Oil).

Ranieri Filo della Torre was the gen­eral direc­tor of Unaprol and made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the Italian olive oil sector’s devel­op­ment. Three years ago, Pandolea came up with an olive oil-themed lit­er­ary con­test ded­i­cated to his mem­ory, which has since allowed indi­vid­u­als from around the world to con­tribute.

The event was also a moment to mark the launch of the orga­ni­za­tion’s new Mediterranean Olive Oil Women’s Network.

“[The work of this asso­ci­a­tion] is one of a kind, as we aim at pro­mot­ing olive oil through our wom­an­hood,” Abbruzzetti said. ​“This means accep­tance, open­ness, embrace, and car­ing for the future of our chil­dren.”

Jordan is one of many coun­tries in which the work of women is dri­ving the sec­tor for­ward. Nehayah Almuhaisen, the direc­tor of the olive oil divi­sion of the Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture, joined Abbruzzetti to speak about the state of the olive oil sec­tor in her coun­try as well as the role of women in pro­mot­ing the coun­try’s olive oil cul­ture.

“In Jordan, olive trees cover 77 per­cent of the tree-planted area of the coun­try, while most of its farm­ers are olive grow­ers,” she said. ​“Many typ­i­cal Jordanian dishes are olive oil-based, nev­er­the­less we need to raise ever more knowl­edge on this great prod­uct amongst con­sumers since high prices can be a rea­son for a decrease in con­sump­tion.”

Almuhaisen empha­sized the need for pro­duc­ers to con­nect with con­sumers and said that events, such as Pandolea, were great oppor­tu­ni­ties for these types of inter­ac­tions to take place.

“In the light of the poten­tial of the sec­tor, we are work­ing on increas­ing the aware­ness of con­sumers and pro­duc­ers on the impor­tance of high-qual­ity extra vir­gin olive oil,” Almuhaisen added. ​“Making the new gen­er­a­tion aware of healthy eat­ing habits and how to make good use of the sen­sory eval­u­a­tion of olive oil is a goal shared with Pandolea.”

“This invi­ta­tion to be part of an inter­na­tional net­work who aim at pro­mot­ing extra vir­gin olive oil encour­ages me and my team to con­tinue our work,” she added. ​“We are look­ing for­ward to the next events with the coun­tries which will join us.”

Abbruzzetti said that she hoped that events such as this one will help olive oil pro­duc­ers, espe­cially women, from around the world to con­nect and share their ideas.

“The work with the Jordan team pro­vided a great oppor­tu­nity to exchange views and for growth,” she said. ​“For this rea­son, by involv­ing women pro­fes­sion­als from the other coun­tries, we aim to cre­ate a con­struc­tive debate on extra vir­gin olive oil at a global level, with the goal to boost the whole sec­tor.”

Greece will be the next coun­try to join the olive oil women net­work, while con­tact has been made with Argentina to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­ity as well.

“We called it ​‘Mediterranean’ because we started here, but the call is open to women pro­fes­sion­als in the olive oil sec­tor all over the world,” Abbruzzetti said.

• ANSA