Eugenio Cioffi — Murikè Company

Eugenio Cioffi, owner of the “Murikè” Farm

“I am Eugenio Cioffi, one half of the farm — in the sense that everything was created and run together with my wife, Angela.

Ours is a farm that does everything with its own produce, processing what it grows with its own workers — and above all, thanks to the family’s involvement.

The farm’s name combines our location in the region with our production. Murikè is, in fact, the Greek name for Morigerati and means ‘land of broom’ — paradoxically, the hamlet of Sicilì (where I was born) means ‘fig grove’ in Greek. Our primary product is, in fact, figs, and in the past, the broom branches were also used to make the racks on which the figs were dried.

Among the olive trees we inherited, we still have some wonderful specimens — including one tree in particular that is nearly a thousand years old, and which perhaps symbolizes the real reason why I became a farmer. In fact, when my father fell ill with a chronic disease and was about to pass away, he made sure to leave his three children — who were attending college at the time — some money to help us get by. So he — who was an agricultural technician and had a passionate love for all plants — decided to sell the family’s oak and olive trees to loggers, essentially. I put a stop to everything, returned to Morigerati, and bought back the olive trees without a penny to my name.

The early stages of my life as a farmer and as a manager overlapped, and both were very exciting for me — because I, like so many others, had left this area: my experience was that of someone who, at the time, was studying, had enrolled in college — even with good grades — and was planning a thesis on interesting topics abroad.

Then, due to a series of family circumstances — basically, Angela didn’t want to stay in Berlin — I decided to return and start over with what I had: namely, the land, where, however, there was nothing.

Everyone asks me, “So what do you do for a living?” — as if they couldn’t accept the idea that someone might be a farmer, and that such a person might even have a basic education, might have ideas, and might think for themselves.

Ours is an extremely diversified farm: it began as a production operation specializing in particular in fig cultivation — an activity that had unfortunately been lost in our area and that we set out to revive starting in 2001, planting the first fig orchard of 400 trees at a time when figs were no longer to be found in the village.

Alongside the figs, we then integrated olive cultivation, which was represented here by the historic, centuries-old Pisciottana olive trees.

Over the past four years, we have also ventured into winemaking, planting the first 5,000 meters of vineyards with the Greco di Tufo grape variety and establishing our production with Cilento reds, such as Aglianicone.

We then expanded our tourism offerings by building a brand-new agritourism facility with a total of fifteen beds. Finally, we restored an old, derelict building that had once been used to store farming and livestock equipment, transforming it into a small two-room suite that primarily accommodates families.

The farm’s multifunctional nature is combined with hospitality, food service, production, and processing.

The farm is sustainable from an environmental standpoint, from an economic standpoint, and — we like to think — also in terms of our social relationships with the people who work with us.”