Rome: When race riots sparked by the shooting of two African migrant workers forced Sulaiman Diara to abandon life as a fruit picker in southern Italy he decided to turn his hand to making yoghurt.
With €30 (Dh118; $32) borrowed from an Italian charity worker, he and a friend bought 15 litres of milk and tried their luck.
Six years on, the two friends and five other migrants are running a small organic farming business that UN experts say is an example of sustainable agricultural development, which if replicated could help feed the growing global population.
“We named it Barikama, which means ‘resilience’ as we went through many difficulties to open this company but we never gave up,” he said referring to a term used in Bambara, a language spoken in his native Mali.
Born in a rural area of southwestern Mali, Diara arrived in Italy on a migrant boat from Libya in 2008 hoping to make enough money to buy his family a cow and a plough.
“We had no equipment to work the land and struggled to produce enough food for the whole year,” he said.
Italy has since become Europe’s main entry point for refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.
A record 181,000 crossed the Mediterranean last year, most on flimsy boats run by people smugglers.
“I was told it would be easy to find a job in Italy,” said the 32-year old. But the reality turned out to be different.
Like thousands of others, Diara ended up working in vegetable fields and fruit orchards in conditions that have been described as exploitative and slave-like by rights groups and labour unions.
In January 2010, a gang of white youths fired air rifles at a group of African migrants, injuring two of them. It set off riots that led authorities to evacuate more than 1,000 migrants from the town, including Diara and his future business partners, who had been living in abandoned factories with no running water or electricity.
Homeless in Rome
The group ended up homeless in Rome, where they decided to have a go at producing organic yoghurt.
In Mali, making yoghurt simply required putting milk in a barrel and waiting, Diara said, adding that this seemed very appealing after two years of back-breaking farm labour.
The young entrepreneurs adapted the Malian method to the colder climate, warming up the milk to trigger fermentation, and started selling jars at farmers’ markets.
Initially they struggled to overcome Italian customers’ diffidence.
“It’s not easy to do business in Italy if you come from Africa and have a dark skin,” said 31-year-old Barikama partner Cheikh Diop who comes from Senegal.
“Many didn’t trust us, believing we had poor hygienic standards.” But the product gradually grew in popularity thanks to its distinctive taste and its makers’ friendly attitude, Diop said.
“Now we have elderly clients who say the taste of our yoghurt reminds them of their youth,” he said.
Operating from a farm overlooking a lake outside Rome, Barikama now sells about 200 litres a week. The business not only provides a living for its partners, it has also helped break down social barriers.
“By touring local markets I’ve learnt the language and met many nice Italians,” said 26-year-old Malian Sidiki Kone. “Before, I thought there were no good people in this country,” he added.
—Reuters
