In Italy, how one cooperative is trying to counter the Mafia’s influence
The first time Simmaco Perillo arrived in the Italian hamlet of Maiano di Sessa Aurunca, everything around him was abandoned. The soil was untended, the house on the main estate was dilapidated, and a hayloft on the second floor of the house was crumbling. It was 2005, and nobody wanted to cultivate former Mafia land, he says.
“Everything was in ruins, but I saw the potential. We wanted to make a farm for the reintegration of disadvantaged people,” says Mr. Perillo, sitting in what
