Piana degli Albanesi sits among the fertile mountains of western Sicily, overlooking farmland and a lake whose waters have receded dramatically.
Its Arbereshe name is “Hora e Arbereshevet”, or, “Town of the Arbereshe”, the only one among the several other Italian towns to maintain a distinct name connected to the ethnic group that inhabits it.
The word “Hora”, explains Mayor Rosario Petta, as he walks through the town’s cobbled streets, is an old Albanian word for a town or homeland that is no longer commonly used in modern Albanian.
In Piana, however, the name is everywhere. It appears on street signs, public buildings and local businesses, a reminder that this is not simply a Sicilian town with an unusual history. It is the centre of one of Italy’s most important ethnolinguistic communities.
Petta says that in Albania, the Arbereshe are almost mythical figures –reminders of a version of Albania that disappeared centuries ago but still exists in these communities.
There is a strange historical relationship between the two sides.
The people of Piana look towards Albania as the ancestral land from which their communities emerged. Meanwhile, in Albania, the Arbereshe represent a living connection to an older version of Albanian language and culture that they can no longer experience in their homeland.
But the community in Piana is shrinking.
Over the past five years, according to Petta, the town has lost more than 20 per cent of its population. Its official population is now below 6,000, although the actual number of people living there is believed to be lower.
“The more people we lose, the more our ancient heritage is threatened,” Petta said.
The reasons are familiar across rural southern Italy: limited employment, young people leaving for larger cities or abroad, and the decline of traditional agriculture.
In Piana, climate change is adding another layer to the crisis.
The olive groves around Piana are increasingly exposed to drought, extreme temperatures and wildfires.
In 2023, wildfires destroyed several hectares of land around the town. The water crisis is also affecting farmers directly.
“We have felt the water crisis a lot and it is reflected in the quantity, quality and timing of our produce,” Claudio said.
Harvests have been brought forward as summers become longer and hotter. Trees are showing signs of stress that were previously unusual.
“The summer season is longer,” he added. “This year the grape harvesting season came earlier because of weather changes.”
The climate crisis, therefore, threatens more than individual farms. Agriculture has historically been one of the ways Arbereshe communities have remained rooted in their villages and integrated within Italian and Sicilian society. If farming becomes economically unsustainable, one of the remaining reasons for younger people to stay also disappears.
The Scalia siblings are trying to make agriculture part of the solution.
Their company was established in 2022, building on an olive grove planted in 1998. Their aim is to combine modern agricultural practices with the cultural heritage of Piana.
Their products are organic, with the longer-term ambition of securing territorial recognition such as the IGP designation. Alongside olive oil, they produce honey and other agricultural products, including plums.
The names of their products pay homage to their Arbereshe heritage. One of them, “Filari”, refers to the rows of olive trees while evoking “fili d’oro”, the golden threads used in traditional Arbereshe clothing.
The point is to make the connection between agriculture and culture more visible.
“Few people invest in agriculture and innovation in these historical times,” Claudio Scalia said. “Those who do struggle to live exclusively from it these days. To keep our farming culture alive, we are also taking on other jobs to financially sustain ourselves in a more stable way.”
Children no longer speak the language