Leveraging Diversity to Enhance Resilience

by Macaco Tamerice of Damanhur, Italy

Damanhur consists of four communities, each between 90 to 140 residents alongside smaller households. Each community consists of a nucleus spread out in 5 different municipalities. The decentralized structure arose from the necessity of acquiring fragmented parcels of land. This felt as a disadvantage from many viewpoints, but it also has its great advantages due to the beautiful diversity. Some are in the plain, some in the fore mountains and others in different climates, though they are all close by. It doesn’t allow for a connected territory, though it enables unique opportunities: the varying terrains offer diverse microclimates allowing a range of agricultural pursuits.

This diversity has proven to be a huge advantage for our Resilience. Much of our organic farming and agriculture cooperative are in the plain area. This is home to the greenhouses, chickens, cows, bees, corn, wheat, courgettes, tomatoes, aubergines, potatoes, carrots, and all kinds of vegetables. It also hosts our vineyards, which once produced an award-winning white wine.

In Damanhur, one of the characteristics of our community has always been to turn disadvantages into advantages. In this case, not having one big piece of land helped us diversify in many ways, especially in agriculture and renewable energy. We have solar panels in all our houses and in some houses where there is no rock we also have geothermal systems.

In July 2011 we experienced the strongest hailstorm in the 50 years of the community’s existence, with hailstones the size of eggs. In just 20 minutes the entire year’s harvest was destroyed. It was frightening to see the vegetables that were in thousands of pieces, as if they had been ground up, many bushes were completely destroyed as were the trees.

All the corn, all the wheat, all the fruit trees were in pieces. The scariest thing that happened in the municipality where we have most of our agriculture is that some chickens were literally killed by the hail. Of course, all the cars that had been outside looked as if they had been hit by steel eggs.

The biggest financial damage was that the vineyard with all the fine wines was completely destroyed. In total, it was a damage of around 20,000 euro for agriculture alone.

In other places the hail also hit, but not as badly. All Damanhurian nucleus also have their own vegetable gardens, in addition to our main agricultural cooperative, so we were still able to eat our vegetables. In some places there was hardly any damage. This was an important lesson: diversification can be a real advantage and supports resilience in a significant way.

This collective memory highlights our community’s unique approach to overcoming challenges by leveraging diversity to enhance resilience. We were able to mitigate the impact of the disaster. This event underscores the importance of diversification, demonstrating how the community’s varied agricultural pursuits across different terrains helped buffer against catastrophic losses.  The community has not only adapted to their circumstances but thrived in spite of them. Ultimately, we learned that diversification is not just a strategy, but a fundamental advantage that strengthens resilience and ensures the sustainability of the Damanhur community.