On 14th January 1893, the Consorzio Agrario di Parma was founded as a “public limited company”; its function: to create purchasing groups in favour of farmers.
The pioneers of this winning initiative:
Professor Antonio Bizzozero, a well-known Italian agronomist working in the province of Parma, who stood out with his organizational skills, commitment, competence, along with his compassion and eloquence; in this triumphant project he was not alone: he was accompanied by the engineer and regional deputy Cornelio Guerci, but above all by the protagonists throughout the land: 115 farmers from the splendid Parma province, brave and determined to reach all the farmers directly on their farms to instruct them and support them in agronomic techniques.
All together, from the very beginning, they published the first issue of the current magazine called “Avvenire Agricolo” named after its origins “newsletter of the itinerant school, practical and experimental agricultural school, of rural houses and any other cooperative agricultural institution in the Province of Parma”.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, these societies began to develop all over Italy in the form of cooperative members, the Consorzi Agrari, in order to form purchasing groups in favour of farmers and to support the entire agricultural sector throughout the whole of Italy.
Within a few years, the Consorzi Agrari spread to many Italian provinces, with offices located in different municipalities of Italy, in order to ensure the network’s presence in every part of the land in support of the development of agriculture and the promotion of agricultural production.
The ever increasing need for specific regulations for these new cooperatives of agricultural partners was finalized by the issuance of a set of rules for the Consorzio Agrari, guaranteed by the Legislative Decree of 7th May 1948, no. 1235, “Ordinamento dei Consorzi Agrari e della Federazione italiana dei Consorzi Agrari” and subsequently approved by Law no. 561 of 17th April 1956.
It is the Consorzi Agrari in all of Italy that today, regulated by this law, promote Italian agriculture, its production and all Italian gastronomic excellence.