It was the late summer of 2009 and from my uncles 'cellar, Vini Sultana , all' dusk, I watched the vineyard and the olive grove planted long ago by my far-sighted grandfather. There the sunsets are quite bewitching, perhaps due to the softness of the hills and the countryside of Pachino, perhaps due to the ancient charm of the ruins of old farmhouses, perhaps due to the relaxing permanence of the Iblei in the distance. And there, probably also influenced by the many wonderful years spent in scouting, I thought I saw tents among the olive trees. No, it was not about any abusive camper but simply of my galloping imagination in the throes of having to combine something for my future subsistence ... I was in fact completing my course of study in philosophy and soon I could have the title of Doctor Magistrale in Contemporary Philosophy, degree theoretically "qualifying" for teaching. Except for then to discover (but it was already in the air for some time) that they were joking: you should still have access to the Active Training Internship, ie the replacement of the old Schools of Specialization for Teaching that should have been, in fact, replaced by the Degrees Magistral. Today my determined former university colleagues discover, at the age of forty, that the joke continues, because today the (expensive) achievement of the TFA would seem to have no value. At the time, I sniffed in time that something did not square, therefore, between the study of Heiddeger and Searle, it began to flash more and more often in my mind that I should look for an alternative to the idea of ​​seeing myself in the near future of hopeful students in a high school classroom.

So I decided to try to set up a campsite among the olive trees of my grandfather . Only that land and the one next to that I would later purchased, of course with the money of dad, were and remain agricultural: so I would first have to set up a farm with all the necessary structural and professional requirements (fortunately I had already behind the 'experience of a couple of harvests ...), and then request an agrituristico clearance to the Provincial Inspectorate of Agriculture thanks to which the City of Noto would have issued me the authorizations necessary for its realization. Simple, no? I thought so too... Those were also the rampant years of the famous Rural Development Plan 2007-2013, subsequent to the golden age of abuse and waste of previous donations of European funds: people who required funds for an agricultural warehouse but that ended up "financing" the construction of the mega luxury house long desired or "young entrepreneurs" who invested the several tens of thousands of euros fell from the European sky to run around on a flaming Mercedes. Controls on costs, on the part of Europe, (rightly) became more capillary and therefore it was no longer easy to see the coveted lost funding. Although I had all the papers in order, it was added the decisive factor "freezing of European funds" (so hermetically defined by the experts) because of "delays and bureaucratic errors" by the staff in charge of the Sicily Region. In the end, in relation to that RDP, the sums paid were, due to certain "bureaucratic problems", a negligible percentage compared to what was granted by Mamma Europa. It is therefore surprising that the former President of the suppressed Province of Syracuse, Nicola Bono, presented to the Court of Auditors requesting an investigation relating to 200 million euro disappeared into thin air ... Moral of the story? I have lost years of time waiting for these funds to "unblock" (no agronomist, technician or regional official was able to define what would still have to wait). So thanks to Dad, the Italian Army General fresh fresh retirement, I was able to continue independently in the implementation of the project, regardless of the PSR "frozen". If between the lines should not strangely be found, without the money of dad I would not have concluded anything.
After five years of bureaucracy , between confusion over the temporal versions of the laws of reference, offices poorly updated and not accustomed to the use of information technology, references of responsibility between non-communicating bodies, I finally managed to have an unexpected amount of "cards" in hand to allow me to sleep almost serene. Yes, because still, after seven years, I would not mind inserting another pair of pieces to the mosaic of the authorizations. In an agricamping even selling a coffee to a guest is not a trivial matter: you should theoretically have coffee plantations.



Initially I considered the agricultural frame, within which I was forced to stay to deal with receptivity, a ball at the foot because of the many limitations. In reality it turned out to be a lifeline, because the agricultural tax regime concerns a series of facilitations and possibilities that in my case have proved absolutely vital. For details I refer you to the advice of many good accountants ... The first five years are said to correspond to the crucial period that determines the survival or failure of an activity similar to mine: I managed to stay afloat thanks to exceptional contingencies, such as the essential support and economic contribution from my family members, which allowed me to re-invest almost entirely the annual proceeds of the business. I would not swear that with my only "skill" I would be able to grow and give strength to my business. The reality is that I was and remain a privileged social.
My collaborators have always been trusted friends: in other words, there has never been a single euro left. Between us there has always been a relationship of extreme trust, among peers: I have never looked for "employees" but "members of fact" . This climate has allowed us to optimize the available economic resources, to agree on investments and to establish with serenity how much and how to compensate them. My commitment would have been to continue to invest in the business, because with a bigger cake the portions would have grown for everyone. If this "trust" and complicity were lacking and we had exclusively applied the logic of our immediate and selfish usefulness, without disposition to small sacrifices and opportune compromises, the fiscal costs would not have been sustainable and compatible with the growth of the activity . And I am not referring to irregular assumptions or illegal employment, simply to the flexibility in this regard that the agricultural tax system allows. Obviously the company does not have the economic strength to guarantee them an annual salary, being a seasonal activity, but the path is traced...

Hand in hand, even considering the natural position in the agricultural tax regime, if there were also one of the contingent conditions that occurred after the initial investment, the best forecast that could have been achieved is an annual insufficient profit to guarantee investments of substance (unless you are in debt, trying your luck), yet adequate to support a single seasonal intake. In other words, no growth would have been impossible.
Fortunately, today the real economic potential of the company is very different, but the daughter of riskier choices at least and of small contributions of "corrective capital", after initial investment, not strictly resulting from entrepreneurial activity. The business continues to develop because it is economically sound and consequential factors such as a higher inflow of guests resulting from increased supply and increasing reputation gained (through online reviews, but this is another story of love and hate that I will be pleased to tell you in another occasion) are coupled with the fundamental contribution of the "human capital", that is, of the beautiful people with whom I have been surrounded, the true engine of the Agingamp Sophia.
If it is real the will of the Italian State to find a solution to the long employment crisis that grips our unhappy times, I am convinced it is necessary to facilitate the emergence of new businesses and really allow them to grow without getting sticks in the wheels from the same State . In these first seven years of activity I can boast of having given a breath of oxygen to a dozen people, then families. Certainly I have not radically changed his life, but together we have laid a solid foundation or, badly that I go, tested a working method . A new business similar to mine, for the first five years of life should not waste too much time and energy to chase a complicated bureaucracy, but think only to pay more than adequately their "employees" and reinvest a good percentage of turnover in order to improve and implement the conditions for their growth. These companies, even more so if they started a bank loan to begin with, should therefore be totally tax free (no tax, no tax, no withholding tax) for the first five years , provided they hire staff and continue to invest. From the sixth year, if everything went according to plan, the company on duty would have no difficulty in starting to pay the State the due, which would thus find itself with much more substantial income deriving from a solid company and with some unemployed in less among its own citizens. Instead of the hen tomorrow, today the state is satisfied with the potentially potentially rotten egg.