Jane Reasland

Sam Hackworth 

English 102 

05/02/2016

Why does the mafia feel entitled enough to not only take over the olive oil industry from small family-run businesses, and how are they able to sell counterfeit/altered products to countries such as America without having suffered any sort of repercussions?

Olive oil is one of the main and most important exports the country of Italy has. It is almost synonymous with the words "liquid gold." It is one of the most exported agricultural products that Italy has to offer, and the issue at hand is that the Italian mafia has had an intense hold on the business for years and they have been altering the validity of the olive oil being produced. My main concerns are that the mafia feels entitled enough to not only take over the olive oil industry from small family-run businesses, but they also feel brazen enough to sell counterfeit/altered products to countries such as America without suffering any sort of repercussions. The small business owners who run centuries old olive oil farms must revolt and take back control of their businesses and end this reign of fallacy, as the mafia is just siphoning millions of dollars off of their lies. 

I am interested in this research question because I have lived in Italy for eight years of my life and my family still lives there and will be there for another four years, and I have been immersed in that country's culture for most of my childhood and olive oil has been included in almost all my meals. Food is such a huge part of any kind of culture all over the world, but especially in Italy where every single meal is prepared with pride and authenticity, and to know that the mafia is taking something as timeless and historic as olive oil and making it nothing more than a cheap way to make money off of tinted sunflower oil and calling it authentic Italian made olive oil is not only illegal, but it is also morally wrong and against my values. My personal experience regarding the fake mafia ran olive oil is that since now that I live in the United States of America, it has been proven that 1 in 3 bottles of olive oil sold in stores are unauthentic. I am gambling on spending my hard earned money on something that is not even real. Nobody wants to spend money on anything that claims to be real but in the end is actually nothing more than a lie. I am qualified to write about this because I have consumed and actually have made my own olive oil with my family, so I know exactly what real olive oil tastes like. To know that the mafia is taking over hard working family run businesses who are making authentic olive oil just to make money for themselves off of cheap and easily accessible sunflower oil is marring the image and pride of hard working families. 

In the article titled, "Mafia Control of Olive Oil the Topic of '60 Minutes' Report," Tom Mueller gives a detailed central claim discusses how its recently been discovered that Italy has been shipping out fake olive oil and they even dedicated an entire 60 Minutes segment to this topic. The major evidence includes Sergio Tirro having had a research team of 60 professional olive oil taste testers trying the different brands of olive oil being sold in America. Their findings were shocking because they found that 1 in 3 bottles being sold in normal grocery stores were unauthentic and it was indeed traced back to the mafia. They are taking millions of consumer's dollars with no regrets or moral objections and the consumers have no idea that they are being sold fake olive oil because most of them have never had the opportunity to taste authentic olive oil. Tom Mueller is the author of this piece and he has little to no bias in regards to this topic because if he decides to have a bias then he loses credibility and he is not allotted that because he is a major news correspondent and if he gives the public anything other than facts he thereby loses his credibility. 

In Nick Pisa's brief article, "Grapes of Wrath: Mafia Blamed for Pouring 80,000 Litres of Wine from One of Italy's Most Prestigious Vineyards Down the Drain," he mainly talks about the mafia's control in other agricultural businesses such as the wine industry, which also happens to be another key aspect in Italian culture. The evidence is the 80,000 liters of wine that was dumped purposefully because the mafia did not agree with the owners of the Brunello di Montalcino wine business. The values are that the mafia wrongly took a major source of money and power from the rightful owners all because they were being stopped from altering the authenticity of the wine. This article shows that the mafia is capable of altering businesses other than the olive oil business. The credibility of the author, Nick Pisa, and the source itself is not as strong as is the Mueller's article because it is an article on a news blog website and the author is not well known and does not have as much credibility in the world of journalism. There is no bias because it is still just based off of factual information and there were actual accounts by the owner of the Brunello di Montalcino winery located within the article. 

Cecilia Rodriguez's article titled, "Italy's Food Mafia Seeps Beyond Fake Olive Oil," main claim discusses how the mafia has also tainted the mozzarella cheese business by using cow's milk instead of buffalo milk. The source mainly gives factual statistics and numbers as to how much of the farmland in Italy is controlled by the mafia, and it turns out to be a staggering amount. The major stake of the article is to inform the public of how much of the foods imported from Italy have been influenced and altered by the mafia and their devious acts. The author, Cecilia Rodriguez, is also not as well known by the general public, but the source is very well known and it is a famous magazine known as Forbes and it has no bias because, again, like all my other sources it uses nothing but numbers and actual quotes from high ranking officials and people who have been directly affected by this crisis. 

This research question is arguable because many can claim that the money gained from the mafia through these illegal activities is being circulated back into the economy and society because the mafia controls nearly every aspect of the economy. Also, there have yet to be any legitimate arrests or consequences enacted on any mafia member regarding any agricultural topic, thus concluding that there hasn't been enough proof found. This research question also goes hand in hand with Wendell Berry's article, "The Pleasures of Eating" because it discusses the importance of really knowing where your food came from and how the connection between food and the land is of the utmost importance. The main agreement found consistently in all my sources were that the mafia has a definite hand in dealing out fake products and getting profit from them while destroying small authentic family-run businesses in the process. There really are no disagreements found in the sources because all of them basically discuss the same problem with the mafia just regarding different products and situations. The different perspectives of the sources affect my own perspective in a positive way because it has furthered my knowledge regarding the mafia's involvement in the agriculture business and how much other countries are being taken advantage of when they buy these fake products. I will need to revise my research question by making it more specific in regards to how the small business owners are being affected, and by making more broad in the sense of including different parts of the agriculture businesses and how each one is affected by the mafia's involvement. I also need to think of how I am going to be able to make a difference and think of how to apply it and actually bring it to fruition. 

Works Cited

Whitaker, Bill.  "Mafia Control of Olive Oil the Topic of '60 Minutes' Report." www.oliveoiltimes.com. Web. 3 Jan. 2016. 12 Feb. 2016. 

Pisa, Nick. "Grapes of Wrath: Mafia Blamed for Pouring 80,000 Litres of Wine from One of Italy's Most Prestigious Vineyards Down the Drain." www.dailymail.com. Web. 5 Dec. 2012. 12 Feb. 2016. 

Rodriguez, Cecilia. "Italy's Food Mafia Seeps Beyond Fake Olive Oil." www.forbes.com. Forbes Magazine. Web. 27 Jan. 2015. 12 Feb. 2016.
