Can We Blame the Mafia on Lemons?

When Gaspare Galati took over management of the Fondo Riella in 1872, he knew he was in for a headache. The ten-acre lemon and tangerine
farm just outside of Palermo should have been a prime piece of property, bringing its owner a slice of the booming citrus market that had northwest
Sicily overflowing with wealth. Instead, it seemed cursed. Galatis late brother-in-law, who had left him charge of the farm, had died of a heart attack
after receiving a series of mysterious, threatening letters. And everyone knew that the farms warden, Benedetto Carollo, had been stealing more
than his share of the profits for years. Galati was a surgeon and a family man, well-respected by everyone in town, so he went by the book. First, he
tried to lease the property but Carollo made it impossible, harassing potential tenants and tanking the farms reputation by stealing pre-sold lemons
off the trees. Eventually, Galati figured hed nip the problem in the bud: he fired Carollo.
He must have thought that would be the end of it. Instead, in July of 1874, his new warden Carollos replacement was found lying between two
rows of lemon trees, with multiple bullets in his back. After Galati hired yet another warden, more threatening letters began pouring in, accusing him
of firing a "man of honor" in favor of an "abject spy." If Galati didnt re-hire Carollo, one missive said, he, too, would suffer the fate of his late warden
but "more barbarous." In other words, someone was making him an offer he couldnt refuse.
The local police were suspiciously resistant to arresting Carollo, and the local judges were loathe to convict him. Galati spent the next year figuring
out how deep this thing went. Eventually, having seen too much, he was forced to flee to Naples with his family. Hed accidentally gotten himself
entangled with a nascent crime ring that would soon be known far and wide: the Sicilian Mafia. And all it took was inheriting a lemon grove.
For decades, from mid-19th century through the mid-20th, if you were growing citrus in northwest Sicily lemons especially you were almost
certainly dealing with the Mafia. As Helena Attlee writes in her history of Italian citrus, The Land Where Lemons Grow, "the speculation, extortion,
intimidation, and protection rackets that characterize Mafia activity were first practiced and perfected in the mid-19th century among the citrus
gardens of [Palermo]." In fact, the association was so strong that some historians and political economists now think the group actually arose directly
from the citrus trade: life gave them lemons, and they made organized crime.
Citrus fruits have grown in Sicily since the 11th century, when Arabic conquerors brought bitter orange trees to the island from North Africa. The
trees flourished, and more and more citrus species were shipped over. By the 15th century, the prevalence of the sun-soaked trees brought the bay
around Palermo a new nickname. People began calling it the "Conca DOro," or the "Shell of Gold."
At first, lemons were essentially a luxury good aristocratic landowners
would grow them on their property, and either sell them whole as
decorations or distill their peels into fragrant essences. Then, near the end
of the 18th century, the British navy finally came around to the idea,
presented to them decades before by the surgeon James Lind, that regular
doses of lemon juice could fend off scurvy. The once-fancy fruits became a
sudden necessity, and Britain began importing hundreds of thousands of
gallons of juice from Sicily every year.
By the early 1800s, in the words of one historian, the island was essentially
"a vast lemon juice factory." The next few decades kickstarted a worldwide
love for Palermo citrus, and ships began setting out daily during harvesting
season, many of them headed to produce markets in Europe and the
United States.
Around the same time, political turmoil led to a reorganization of land
ownership in Palermo. As one group of researchers explains in a recent
paper in the Journal of Economic History, early 19th century Italian lemon
farming happened largely under a feudal system, in which peasants did the
farming and the absentee landowners took most of the profits. A class of
middlemen, called the gabellotti, managed these relationships, hiring
workers and overseeing day-to-day work on the farm. Starting around
1812, popular revolts turned much of the land over to the gabellotti, who,
fearing thieves and marauders, began hiring private guards to protect the
assets that were now theirs.
Then, after 1860, when Sicily officially became part of Italy, parcels of what had been church- and state-owned land went up for sale. This led to a
proliferation of small farms, and many of these new landowners also decided to grow lemons, by far the most profitable crop. They, too, found
themselves in the position of having to hire guards and those who couldnt afford to do so found themselves targeted not only by thieves, but by
the gabellotti and their guards, who saw a unique opportunity for extortion.
"The coalition between gabellotti, [guards], and [thieves] triggered a system of corruption and intimidation such that landowners who could not afford
to hire a guard became the target of brigands," the economists write. "This adverse institutional environment provided the breeding ground for the
organization which would become known as the mafia."
What made the lemon farmers such ripe targets? According to Attlee, much of the blame can be placed on the fruits themselves. "Among species of
citrus in Italy, lemons are some of the most difficult and demanding to cultivate," she says. They need well-fertilized soil, a steady supply of water,
and protection from wind and extreme temperatures, all of which come only at great infrastructural cost. Most trees need to be coddled for seven or
eight years before they produce enough lemons to sell. When they do bear fruit, its easy enough for people to steal it, especially when compared
with smaller crops like wheat or olives. The magnitude of such an investment, combined with the many possibilities for failure, made farmers "very
vulnerable," Attlee says. "They were just ready to be exploited by the first mafiosi."
Over the decades, this exploitation became more and more sophisticated. It generally occurred in a kind of push-and-pull format that will be familiar
to viewers of contemporary crime shows. If another farmer couldnt afford to pump in water, a mafioso would gladly help him and then make the
farmer sign a contract that allowed him to charge massive amounts for that water, which he would do as soon as rainfall was low. As Galatis
experiences illustrate, they formed relationships with those who might have checked their power, especially policemen and judges.
In more recent decades, Sicilys citrus monopoly has loosened. New trade laws and shifting import taxes have made the once-golden crop much
less profitable. The groves narrow rows and terraces the very aspects that allowed the mafiosi to sneakily gun down, say, wardens they didnt like
leave no room for large machinery, and have prevented farmers from achieving the industrial-scale production that is now common in places such
as Brazil. By now, "theres really not enough money involved in citrus to interest the Mafia," says Attlee. Theyve moved on to juicier rackets.
But next time you squeeze a lemon into your tea, take a moment to pay it some respect its a fruit with a bloody history.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mafia-lemons-citrus-sicily-economics