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Marta Fossati

Marta Fossati

Innovator

Bars Chabrier

Italy

Economic

Farming

Remote rural areas

The innovation journey

Marta Fossati was born in Sambuco, a small village in Stura Valley, on the western Italian Alps. After different working experiences and trips abroad, she moved back to her native village and in 2016 she opened a goat and sheep farm. She started the activity from scratch. She received the first 70 goats as a gift from his father, also a farmer, and little by little the flock grew.

The business now entails raising about 200 goats and 65 sheep, selling lambs and baby goats, and producing and selling cheese at local markets and through other short food chains.

Living in Stura Valley is not easy because it is a remote rural area with few services. For this reason, in the last decades, many people moved to nearby towns and cities. Deciding to stay and to start a business in this area is a courageous choice that involves a lot of effort and determination. Marta lives close to her animals; she feeds them with local pasture, grazing them every day on the mountains and raising them with a lot of care. She produces different types of local cheeses by herself, using traditional techniques.

Moreover, every year, she hires young people who comes from nearby towns as well as from different Italian cities and from abroad. She also welcomes woofers. She teaches them how to raise sheep and goats, how to produce cheese and how to run such a business.

The innovation impact

Her activity shows that today, despite the difficulties of living in a remote rural area, it is possible for a young woman to make a conscious decision to become a shepherdess and to produce cheeses that are in great demand, using traditional techniques.

Marta works to maintain the economic sustainability of her farm; however, her actions also address the dimensions of environmental sustainability (e.g. grazing in the mountains) and cultural sustainability (preserving and promoting traditional breeding and dairy methods).

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