Cascina Don Guanella in Valmadrera is a social farming project aimed at welcoming, caring for, training and integrating into the workforce young people with difficulties and at serious risk of social exclusion. The initiative is inspired by the figure of Don Luigi Guanella, who lived in the area at the end of the 19th century.
The Cascina is a social cooperative whose heart is the organic farm that stretches across the surrounding hills. Its lifeblood is the 5,000 square metre vegetable garden, irrigated with a gravity system, where vegetables, berries (raspberries), and herbs are cultivated—sold both fresh and used in the kitchen.