Commitment, expertise and attention to environmental and social sustainability can lead to virtuous models of success.

Over the past few months, we followed three female entrepreneurs who launched their business in the agri-food sector financed by Innovagrowomed start-up hub.

Thus were born AgroMini, A’Naca – Vita in Natura and Nivura, new start-ups supported by the project, experiences of sustainable economic and social development in the Sicilian rural world where women are protagonists.

In this article, Alice Quattrocchi shares how the idea of an agricamping was born.

Just a few more months and A’NACA is already two years old! To be fair, A’NACA Farm was born only in
March 2022, but we consider its birthday date from the moment we first set foot on the land that, from
that day, we could finally consider ours!
“Naca” in Sicilian dialect is the ancient cradle made of warm clothes that was placed over the parents’ bed, to “rock” the baby to sleep when it needed to be soothed. “Naca” however, also means “river bed,” just likethe bed of the Agrò River that demarcates one of our borders.
A’NACA, in fact, from the 1 st of June 2021 became our “cradle,” the place where we could feel at home and where we started to host our guests, volunteers, friends and family; the place where we started our dream and made it a space open to all and sundry. That day we opened the gate of A’NACA for the first time with the awareness that there would be a lot of work to be done, but that we would do it with determination, strength, and enthusiasm!
Along with me that day was Mattias; the two of us who had chosen to be a couple in life and a couple in an entrepreneurial project in which our ideas and skills would come together and multiply. I still remember a phrase as dear as bizarre said by a friend: “1+1 does not make 2, it makes 11!” How not to believe it?
So, from the encounter between a psychologist and a cook, sparked the desire to see our professions and passions transformed into a life project and an idea for a sustainable business, which had as its basis a place of well-being to provide welcome and care, educational and training paths, opportunities for work and personal exploration; a place where everything takes place in full contact with Nature, with respect for its inhabitants and the enhancement of its products.
On one hand, there is me, finishing my university career, traveling, and working in Europe and Latin
America. I discovered that I had a strong interest in ethical and sustainable lifestyles. It was from there that I realized that the well-being of People can only be intrinsically linked also to the well-being of the Earth and those who inhabit it.
On the other hand, there is Mattias who, after years of profession even in renowned contexts, felt the need to propose a quality cuisine, more balanced, healthy, and fair. This cuisine would go from the ethical production of raw materials to their transformation, merging the tradition and the local knowledge to the quality and the innovation.
People care and Earth care, in our vision, become two sides of the same coin.

Thus, A’NACA was born, a place where Nature becomes Teacher and Life Companion, giving us the
opportunity to take care of her and to be taken care by her.
A’NACA is therefore a place where we can fully experience the contact with Nature; it is the start of an Agri Bike Camping where agricultural production, rural hospitality and ethical and sustainable tourism come hand in hand to ensure a unique experience full of the values we want to transfer to our guests.
At A’NACA we promote agricultural production cycles that are regenerative and respectful of the
environment and its inhabitants; we offer genuine, healthy and tasty products that people can harvest with their own hands to rediscover the flavor and with it the joy, amazement and satisfaction of an ancient gesture; we offer a space where people can stay overnight to fully experience comfort and relaxation surrounded by trees and the sounds of Nature; we offer welcome services bicycle tourists and trekking lovers to be able to find refreshment in a context rich in uncontaminated flavors, smells and colors, rediscovering the value so strong and genuine of simplicity and slowness.
There is still much work to be done, but we could not have started without the support and expertise
offered by the CESIE team and the Innovagrowomed program.
In fact, only a few months after we had opened the gate to A’NACA, the Innovagrowomed virtual classroom became the training ground for turning our vision into a real business idea.
A classroom where other strong and determined women like me had the courage to get involved and not give up in the face of the difficulties and unknowns of having to build their own future from scratch.
Today A’NACA is about to turn two years old, two years in which it has established itself as a farm and laid the groundwork to become an innovative place of hospitality and welcome for lovers of ethical, slow and sustainable tourism.
We can only be grateful for all the support we have received and above all we look forward to welcoming
you to our world of colors, flavors, and smells of a thousand varieties.

About the project

The goal of the project InnovAgroWoMed is to boost women employability and entrepreneurshipin the Agri-food sector, an industry closely linked to the cultural identity of the Mediterranean region and showing a significant level of untapped potential in terms of innovation and growth. InnovAgroWoMed is a project funded by the European Union under ENI CBC Mediterranean Sea Basin Programme.

Partners

• Università di Roma Tor Vergata (Italy, coordinator)
• Jovesolides (Spain)
• Centre of Arab Women for Training and Research – CAWTAR (Tunisia)
• Palestinian businesswomen’s association – ASALA (Palestine)
• CESIE (Italy)

For further information

Visit the page REWRITE YOUR STORY and follow the project on Facebook.

Contact: international@cesie.org