ARZACHENA — As Gallura, in north-east Sardinia, readies for the autumn sowing, Lia Miceli is preparing to plant tricu cossu, a soft wheat that almost vanished, grown from seed that elderly farmers kept in drawers and chests.
Miceli, who is from Argentina, and her husband Diego Di Niglio run Tenuta Coda di Lupo, a farm at Scalìa near Arzachena.
The couple wanted to farm organically, with wheat rooted in Gallura. The seed on sale, Miceli said, came from modern varieties bred for industrial farming, so they spent weeks asking elderly farmers for saved seed. “It is an Italian heritage that must be protected,” she said.
“Bringing tricu cossu and other local wheat varieties back into production means keeping that heritage alive, and revived traditional agricultural activities can create new opportunities in a region that struggles with limited employment prospects and depopulation,” said Claudia Tavani, founder of Strictly Sardinia, a website on the island’s culture.
“Many had it in a drawer, in a little chest, sacks they no longer had the strength to sow, so they had kept them for years,” Miceli said.
“A drawer of seeds is a treasure trove of diversity,” said Evgenii Arsentev, a physician and founder of Dad4Kids.
Door to door
The couple settled in Sardinia in 2018 after seven years farming in Brazil.
“Two foreigners, a South American and a mainlander, arriving in Sardinia and asking for wheat seed to grow,” Miceli said. They knocked on doors around Arzachena and Palau. The Sanna family gave them a mix of seed and about 10 kilograms of tricu cossu. “They blessed us,” she said.
In July 2018 eight elderly men helped cut the first hectare by hand.
The farm opened the only stone mill in Gallura in December 2024. It mills its flour and bakes sourdough for a weekly bread club. Today, it’s products can be purchased online via its website.
Two researchers counted about 90 traditional Sardinian wheats from 134 local names, many surviving only in old farmers’ memories.
The farm dates tricu cossu to the early 1700s. Their study describes it as a reddish soft wheat that came from Corsica.
Miceli grows four varieties, including Senatore Cappelli, a durum wheat bred in Apulia that spread across Sardinia in the 1920s and disappeared in the 1970s.
In Gallura, the seed bank was never an institution. It was a drawer, and someone had to knock.
Visits to Tenuta Coda di Lupo, in the new province of Gallura North-East Sardinia, can be arranged through the Consorzio Costa Smeralda, part of the Territori di Eccellenza network.
