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Cooperative Management

Konstadinos Mattas · George Baourakis

Constantin Zopounidis Editors

Sustainable
Agriculture and
Food Security
Aspects of Euro-Mediteranean Business
Cooperation
Cooperative Management

Series editors
Constantin Zopounidis, Production Engineering and Management, Technical
University of Crete, Chania, Greece
George Baourakis, Business Economics and Management, Mediterranean
Agronomic Institute of Chania, Chania, Greece
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11891
Konstadinos Mattas George Baourakis
•

Constantin Zopounidis
Editors

Sustainable Agriculture
and Food Security
Aspects of Euro-Mediteranean Business
Cooperation

123
Editors
Konstadinos Mattas Constantin Zopounidis
Department of Agricultural Economics, School of Production Engineering
School of Agriculture and Management
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Technical University of Crete
Thessaloniki Chania
Greece Greece

George Baourakis and

Business Economics and Management
Mediterrean Agronomic Institute Chania School of Management
Chania Audencia Group
Greece Nantes
France

ISSN 2364-401X ISSN 2364-4028 (electronic)

Cooperative Management
ISBN 978-3-319-77121-2 ISBN 978-3-319-77122-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77122-9
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© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

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Contents

Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System: The

Reflexive Nature of Solidarity Purchase Groups and the Migrants’
Social Cooperative “Barikamà” in Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Daniela Bernaschi and Giacomo Crisci
Role of Buffalo Production in Sustainable Development of Rural
Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Ibrahim Soliman
What Does the Young Generation Want to Eat and Do for Being
Healthy from the Perspective of Today and the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Püren Veziroğlu, Kenan Çiftçi, Bülent Miran and Ayça Nur Şahin
Tourist’s Behaviour Towards Local Cretan Food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
A. Malek Hammami, John L. Stanton, Drakos Periklis, George Baourakis,
Gert van Dijk and Spyridon Mamalis
Exploring-Valuing Alternative Distribution Channels: A Systematic
Literature Review of the Agrifood Sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Kallirroi Nikolaou, Foivos Anastasiadis, Efthimia Tsakiridou
and Konstadinos Mattas
Opportunities of Price Risk Limitation in Horticultural Sector in
Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Lukasz Zaremba
Willingness to Pay for Malaria Prophylaxis in Ethiopia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Simon O. Soname and Garth J. Holloway
Alternative Distribution Channels of Fruits and Vegetables . . . . . . . . . . 109
Kallirroi Nikolaou, Efthimia Tsakiridou, Foivos Anastasiadis
and Konstadinos Mattas

v
vi Contents

Evaluation of Irrigation Efficiency Effect on Groundwater Level

Variation by Modflow and Weap Models: A Case Study from
Tuyserkan Plain, Hamedan, Iran . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Abdollah Taheri Tizro, Konstantinos Voudouris, Christos Mattas,
Morteza Kamali and Meysam Rabanifar
Editorial

The Cooperative Management Book Series creates a helpful framework for creative
and scholarly work on cooperative management, policy, economics, organizational,
financial, and marketing aspects of cooperative communities throughout the
Mediterranean region and worldwide. The main objectives of this book are to
advance knowledge related to collective management processes and cooperative
initiatives as well as to provide theoretical background for promoting research
within various sectors wherein market communities operate (agriculture, food
security, real estate, insurance, and other forms). Papers appearing in this series
should relate to one of these areas, should have a theoretical and/or empirical
problem orientation, and should demonstrate innovation in theoretical and empirical
analyses, methodologies, and applications. Further, this series encourages inter-
disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research from a broad spectrum of disciplines
ranging from environmental studies to business studies and food security.
The aim of this volume is to bring together researches from the agriculture and
food sectors to be combined over methodological and empirical issues regarding
relationships among Euro-Mediterranean countries on topics such as food policy,
trade, and environmental issues. The volume also focuses on Euro-Med food
relations including sustainability, marketing, trade, and policy issues. In this
respect, it is critical to examine the sustainability of food sector policies under the
perspective of the scarcity of natural resources.
Moreover, the degree of freedom and possible obstacles regarding trade activities
between Euro-Med countries is another crucial issue, taking also into consideration
the role of marketing. Proper methods will offer crucial insights into how to build
up powerful tools for decision-making, particularly today that agriculture and the
economy alike are affected by a volatile political, social, and economic environment
and forced to undergo severe structural changes. The increase in food prices since
2007 and the world food crisis had severe adverse effects in several countries,
causing macroeconomic problems (inflation, trade deficits, and fiscal pressure),
increased poverty and political instability. Policymakers have acknowledged food
relations as a key strategic area for Mediterranean countries, which needs to be
placed at the core of Euro-Mediterranean regional cooperation.

vii
viii Editorial

We would like to thank the assistant editor Georgios Manthoulis and English
professor Maria Verivaki for the English proofreading. We extend appreciation to
the authors and referees of these chapters, and Springer Academic Publications, for
their assistance in producing this book.

Konstadinos Mattas
George Baourakis
Constantin Zopounidis
Towards a More Democratic
and Sustainable Food System: The
Reflexive Nature of Solidarity Purchase
Groups and the Migrants’ Social
Cooperative “Barikamà” in Rome

Daniela Bernaschi and Giacomo Crisci

Abstract Food insecurity, poverty and migration emergencies are the biggest
challenges that all modern societies have to deal with. The aim of this paper is to
explore the role played by civil society in dealing with these issues through a
reflexive approach. Starting from addressing the multidimensional nature of food
security, this deliverable comes to adopt the concept of a “democratic and sus-
tainable food system”. This change of focus allows to encompass all the comple-
mentary issues: e.g. poverty reduction, environmental sustainability, social equity
and social integration. Due to the complex nature of the matter, not only a strong
local and global coordination is needed but also a reflexive approach. After intro-
ducing the concept of reflexivity, this paper addresses the crucial role that civil
society organizations may play in the transition towards a more democratic and
sustainable food system, focusing on solidarity purchase groups in Italy. In par-
ticular, this deliverable spotlights the collaboration between solidarity purchase
groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale—GAS-in Italian) and the migrants’ social
cooperative “Barikamà” in Rome. That shows an interesting example of how civil
society organizations may cope with poverty reduction, social integration and
sustainability.

Keywords Democratic and sustainable food system
Civil society organizations

Migrants’ social cooperative

D. Bernaschi (&)
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Florence and Turin,
Florence, Italy
e-mail: daniela.bernaschi@unifi.it
G. Crisci
Department of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 1

K. Mattas et al. (eds.), Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security,
Cooperative Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77122-9_1
2 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

1 Introduction

Three relevant key points characterize this paper. Firstly, it takes into account the
Post-2015 Agenda presented by the United Nations at the Sustainable Development
Summit (New York, 2015). The first two SDGs to be reached by 2030 are the eradi-
cation of extreme poverty and the “Zero Hunger” program. There, the main ideas are to
achieve food security and improve nutrition through sustainable agriculture. Poverty,
food insecurity and sustainable agriculture are deeply interrelated phenomena.
Hence, policy strategies to achieve global food security may have to deal with a
wide range of issues: climate change, poverty reduction, social equity, hunger e.g.
(Arcuri et al., 2015; Marsden & Sonnino, 2012). Indeed, a key assumption in this
paper is that food security is a multidimensional concept; it goes beyond mere food
availability and entails different kinds of deprivation. With this in mind, the present
deliverable adopts the all-encompassing concept of a democratic and sustainable
food system.
Secondly, this paper discusses the link between a food system defined as
democratic and sustainable and the “reflexive” approach as a way to better coor-
dinate local and global issues (Duncan, 2015; Edwards et al., 2002; Marsden, 2013;
Voss & Kemp, 2005, 2006; Wolff, 2006). Reflexive governance is characterized by
a multi-stakeholder structure, interactive participation and social learning. Despite
their various declinations, the academic debates on reflexive governance agree that
a broader social participation, discussion and sharing of knowledge are crucial to
solve social problems. Hence, this paper illustrates the emerging contribution
offered by the reflexive governance in addressing new social issues.
Thirdly, it explores the role of civil society organizations in their attempt to
attain a more democratic and sustainable food system. The article analyses the three
specific contributions of solidarity purchase groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale—
GAS-in Italian) in terms of: changing consumers’ behavior and improving nutrition,
supporting local development and enhancing social integration. Then, the collab-
oration between the GAS Movement and Barikamà will be discussed. Barikamà is a
cooperative founded by six migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa in 2014. Its expe-
rience demonstrates how civil society organizations can positively improve social
integration and contribute to the struggle against poverty, realizing a more demo-
cratic and sustainable food system.

2 The Unsustainable Global Food System: The Paradox

of “Scarcity in Abundance”

“We live in a world of unprecedented opulence (…) People live much longer, on an
average, than ever before. (…) And yet we also live in a world with remarkable
deprivation, destitution and oppression. (…) Overcoming these problems is a
central part of the exercise of development” (Sen, 1999, Preface).
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 3

The etymological meaning of “development”, dating back to the mid-18th and

late 19th century, is “an unfolding” (1756), “bringing out the latent possibilities”
(1885). In other words, it implies the removal of any obstacle that prevents and
limits the free and independent development of human beings to lead the kind of
life they value and have reason to value (Sen, 2000a). Broadly, it refers to the
Aristotelian concept of “eudaimonia”, whose meaning is well captured by the idea
of “human flourishing”.
At the core of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United
Nations in September 2015, there is the official commitment to overcome the main
forms of deprivation that prevent people from flourishing. The new global devel-
opment framework articulated in 17 main goals to be reached by 2030 endorses a
more sustainable and inclusive development.
As Daily et al. (1998) stated, there are two main criteria to assess mankind’s
capacity to feed itself: (i) whether individuals can have a secure access to basic
nutritional needs; and (ii) how global food production is sustainable. Considering
these criteria, we are experiencing a deep flaw in the global food system. Indeed,
about 795 million people in the world are undernourished (FAO, 2015), more than
1.9 billion adults are overweight and among these 600 million people are obese, and
the numbers are growing (WHO, 2014).
Furthermore, a global food system is increasingly vulnerable and failing from a
sustainability point of view. According to the IPCC Report (2014), 24% of
greenhouse gas emissions in the world derive from deforestation and methane
produced by livestock, paddy fields and the use of fertilizers in agriculture.
Agricultural input intensification leads to soil degradation, losses in biodiversity
and overuse and pollution of water (Duncan, 2015; Godfray et al., 2010; Hazell &
Wood, 2008). Moreover, according to FAO (2013a, b), every person wastes 350 kg
of food per year, and this waste itself leads to a massive production of greenhouse
gasses only just inferior to the emissions of USA and China.
In conclusion, the current global food system seems to be environmentally
unsustainable and characterized by “scarcity in abundance”, as Campiglio and
Rovati (2009) defined this paradox: on the one hand, there is overconsumption and
waste production; on the other hand, 795 million people are undernourished. In
other words, the current food system leads to inequalities in the access and dis-
tribution of resources.

3 From the “Multidimensional Nature” of Food Security

to a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System

To explore the case study we are going to present, it is fundamental to understand

how the concept of food security has changed in the last forty years. Since the first
definition given by the World Food Conference (1974), where food security was
defined merely in terms of food supply, the concept has evolved consistently and is
4 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

still at the center of the academic debate. Despite the crises that have occurred over
the years, the global availability of food is sufficient to ensure almost 2800 kcal/
person/day (FAO, 2006), an amount that exceeds our needs. Looking at the figure
related to FAO’s data (2013a, b), we can also notice an unequal distribution among
countries: for instance, North America, France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Romania
and Turkey are marked by more than 3,276 kcal per capita per day; whereas
Bolivia, Ecuador, Kenya, Ethiopia are marked by less than 2,454 kcal.
Over the last decades, a new definition of food security has been developed in
order to address its multidimensional nature. A great contribution to the elaboration
of a more comprehensive approach to food security was offered by Amartya Sen at
the beginning of 1980s.
Sen introduced an “entitlements-based analysis” in order to address famine and
hunger. In his famous work “Poverty and Famines” (1981), the focus of the
analysis shifted from food availability at the national level (Fig. 1) to people’s
entitlements. Hunger resulted as an economic issue, rather than a humanitarian one.
Whether we are unable to buy enough food to satisfy our hunger, then we are
destined to suffer from it (Sen, 2000b).
In a market economy, entitlements depend inter alia on the resources and
endowments available: labour force, land and the possession of production factors.
These said factors can be directly used or sold in the market. The entitlements are
related to the market opportunities for what we sell, and the prices and availability
of food and other goods that we want to buy. Getting enough food to eat or
otherwise be forced to go hungry depends on many aspects, such as the endow-
ments and the conditions of production and exchange. The totality of these factors
determines the type of entitlements.

Fig. 1 Global food availability. Source FAO Statistics Division (2013b), Food Balance Sheets,
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy, http://www.fao.org/faostat/
en/#data/FBS/visualize, Reproduced with Permission
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 5

Dahrendorf (1989) compared the entitlements to the tickets that allow access to a
desired place. Through these tools, you can have access to different combinations of
tangible and intangible assets that Dahrendorf called “provision”. The entitlements
approach highlights the institutional, political and socio-economic conditions linked
to food insecurity (Burchi & De Muro, 2012).
Sen’s research has affected the following definitions of food security, such as
that elaborated by the World Food Summit (1996), according to which food
security is the condition where: “All people, at all times, have physical and eco-
nomic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs
and food preferences for an active and healthy life”.
It may be useful to mention “Hunger and Public Action” (1989), a joint work by
Sen and Drèze, which had the merit to broaden the debate about food security by
turning the attention to food utilization, and therefore to nutritional capabilities.
“The object, in this view, is not so much to provide a particular amount of food
for each. Indeed, the relationship between food intake and nutritional achievement
can vary greatly depending not only on features such as age, sex, pregnancy,
metabolic rates, climatic conditions, and activities, but also access to complemen-
tary inputs” (Drèze & Sen, 1989: 13).
In general, food security is not achieved when all individuals get the same
amount of food, because the ability to draw nourishment from it depends on
multiple conversion factors related to personal characteristics (age, sex, physical
and mental health) and the family, social, economic and institutional environment.
Hence, food security does not reside in the dualism “production-consumption”
(Marsden & Sonnino, 2012). As shown by Drèze and Sen (1989), we must look at
the use of food and complementary inputs (whether people can have access to
drinking water, public health services, basic education, epidemics prevention pro-
grams) that have an impact on an individuals’ health.
In Sen’s words: “Hunger and undernutrition are related both to food intake and
to the ability to make nutritive use of that intake. The latter is deeply affected by
general health conditions and that in turn depends much on communal health care
and public health provisions” (1995: 115).
The stress on the multidimensional nature of food insecurity led Sen to use terms
such as “hunger” and “nutritional deprivation” and to avoid phrases like “food
security”, so as to remove all emphasis from “food” (Burchi & De Muro, 2012).
The need for a multidimensional approach to food security has triggered aca-
demic debates. The focus of the analysis shifted from a “production–consumption
framework” to all the complementary inputs: e.g. poverty reduction, environmental
sustainability issues, promotion of social equity.
The debate about access to food is enriched by many academic studies that
highlight the emergence of what Sonnino (2016) defines a “new geography of food
security”, namely the new spatial coordinates of the problem. In fact, the compass
of food insecurity is no longer rigidly fixed on the Global South and in the rural
areas but it also affects the Global North (Dowler & Lambie-Mumford, 2015),
where the paradox of “scarcity in abundance” (Campiglio & Rovati, 2009) is
reified.
6 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

Food is available but some segments of the population are unable to access food
that meets their nutritional and cultural needs (Maino et al., 2016; Shetty, 2015).
This condition is often described as “food poverty” and it entails multiple depri-
vations (Sonnino & Hanmer, 2016).
Maslen et al. (2013: 4) argue that “food poverty is complex and multi-faceted. It
is not simply about immediate hunger and how that might be alleviated. It is not just
about the quantity of food that is eaten, but involves the dietary choices, the cultural
norms and the physical and financial resources that affect which foods are eaten,
ultimately impacting on health status”.
As discussed by Sen (1995), the paradox of hunger in rich societies can be
understood only if we do not focus exclusively on the income dimension.
In this sense, Lang and Barling (2012) offer a conclusive consideration. They
assume that the complexity and the multidimensional nature of food security,
together with the diverse perspectives that its meaning implies, claim for a broader
understanding of that concept, and go on to argue that the concept itself may be
limited. For this reason, they suggest giving up the expression “food security” and
opting for a broader and all-encompassing definition: the “sustainable food system”.
Following Lang and Barling, the current deliverable adopts the concept of
“democratic and sustainable food system”. In this way, the multidimensional nature
of the issue will be easier to comprehend. This change of focus will also encompass
poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and social integration.

4 The Reflexive Role of Civil Society Initiatives

Considering what was previously realized in this paper, it seems pivotal to follow
Beck’s invitation (2003) to renew the conceptual tools, in order to understand the
contemporary social changes and the complexity of the matter.
Hence, it brings us to state that a more democratic and sustainable food system
requires not only a coordination between local and global dimension (Duncan,
2015), but also governance arrangements which are reflexive and able to adopt
flexible and prompt strategies (Voss & Kemp, 2005, 2006; Wolff, 2006; Marsden,
2013; Edwards et al., 2002).
Reflexive governance is a management strategy that does not imply a one-way
problem-solving analysis (Voss & Bornemann, 2011), but an interactive and par-
ticipative multi-stakeholder process, which considers different prospective analyses
and strategies (Feindt, 2010; Gottschick, 2013) to reach a shared solution on the
common social problems (Sonnino et al., 2014).
Studies about reflexive governance are indebted to the concept of “reflexive
modernity” formulated by Giddens (1990), Beck (1992) and Lush (1994),
according to whom reflexivity is “the capacity of an individual subject to direct
their awareness towards themselves, reflecting upon their own practices, and con-
stantly examining and reforming these practices in the light of incoming informa-
tion” (Giddens, 1990: 38).
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 7

In reflexive governance, there are new social and political spaces, which engage
public, private and civic actors and allow a common reflection on practices to be
adopted in order to pursue the transition towards sustainability (Marsden, 2013) and
a better understanding of social change.
The more the governance process is participative, the more it is able to reach the
substantial goals of sustainability: wellbeing, social justice, respect for the envi-
ronment (Stirling, 2009).
In other words, despite their various declinations, the academic debates on
reflexive governance agree that a broader social participation, discussion and
sharing of knowledge are crucial to solve the social problems (Marsden, 2013;
Sonnino et al., 2014). The reflexive approach’s essence is apparent within the civil
society initiatives in their attempt to deal with the socio-economic challenges
affecting modern societies.
Those initiatives draw our attention to their adaptive and responsive nature that
make them able to develop innovative measures and creative responses to new
forms of social vulnerability. Due to their locally based nature, civil society ini-
tiatives have a direct and deep knowledge of the social realities in which they are
linked. This allows them to be more likely to capture the social transformations
taking place, react promptly and adapt their strategies.
It is sharply apparent that the number of civil society initiatives have increased
remarkably since the economic crisis which engulfed Europe in 2008, destroying
“employment, production and human security” (Sen, 2012: 6).
The rise in poverty, social exclusion and food insecurity rates (Eurostat, 2015)
has led to the flourishing of resilient civil society initiatives which work for a more
democratic and sustainable food system, such as: food banks, soup kitchens, soli-
darity purchase groups, urban agriculture, social markets, emporiums of solidarity.
What prompts the civil society to organize itself? At the core of the
community-based initiatives, there is what Beck (2003) calls “empathetic imagi-
nation”, unifying and universal feeling that promotes and justifies actions and leads
to open new communication and relational channels (Magatti, 2005).
However, Crespi’s definition of “solidarity” seems to be more accurate with this
paper’s contents. According to Crespi (1994, 2013), solidarity is an expression of
shared responsibility toward society, not just a selfless approach towards others.
Therefore, as Crespi (2013) stated, assuming the “constitutive sociability” of
human beings, solidarity can be defined as an emancipation process through par-
ticipation in community life. In other words, the constitution of a more democratic
and sustainable food system requires a greater sense of responsibility toward
society, caring more considerately for the world (Pulcini, 2009). Therefore, soli-
darity is crucial to ensure the survival of mankind and to promote inclusive
development.
In the deeper civic engagement, we can see not only a desire for a broader
participation, but also a social laboratory with innovative capacity and the ability of
humanizing social contexts (Magatti, 2005).
8 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

Civil society ensures that the local dimension “repossesses challenges that come
from the global dimension autonomously”1 (Leonardi, 2001: 39). In fact, the social
actors of civil society work to build what Beck (2003) calls “cosmopolitan society”,
a society which has a strong local anchoring without losing the linkages with the
global dimension, a society able to promote connections instead of exclusions
(Keane, 2003).
At the core of civil society initiatives (e.g. urban gardens, solidarity purchase
groups and social market), there is a dense network of solidarity ties used to deal
with social issues.2
If the top-down initiatives for local development are drawing increasing atten-
tion, the initiatives of civil society have not yet received the attention they deserve
(Moulaert et al., 2005).
For this reason, the aim of the following paragraph is to increase the theoretical
and practical understanding of civil society organizations. It will focus on the
experience of solidarity purchase groups in Rome and their reflexive role in:
changing consumers’ behavior and improving nutrition; supporting local develop-
ment; and enhancing social integration. Concerning the last point, social integration
will be addressed, introducing the support offered by the GAS Movement to six
African migrants in setting up their social cooperative called Barikamà.

5 Solidarity Purchase Groups and the Cooperative

“Barikamà” in Rome: Sustainability and the Inclusion
of the Socially Excluded

Solidarity purchase groups (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale—GAS-in Italian) are

grassroots networks where individuals purchase foodstuffs and other products of
everyday use directly from small-medium local producers.
Why are they called “solidarity” purchase groups? Because they combine the
respect for the environment with the sympathy for producers and workers to obtain
a genuine sustainable and inclusive development. The crucial aspect of these groups
is that the producer and consumer can establish a trusted relationship based on the
shared values of solidarity and eco-friendliness. These groups aspire to rebalance
the relationship between rural and urban areas, leading people to a greater and more
conscious respect for the land. Sometimes, GAS’s members visit local producers to
learn about the sustainable agricultural practices and to help them to collect fruits

1
Our translation.
2
An example is the “Eutorto”, an urban garden run by workers on redundancy payment which
belongs to Eutelia Information Technology in Rome. In this case, civil society developed alter-
native responses to the economic crisis and a group of workers decided to remain united to cope
with unemployment.
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 9

and vegetables. These groups enable the culture of sustainability, a process that
should engage people and enforce their relationship with nature.
GAS are mainly informal groups and operated without any legal acknowl-
edgement until 2007, when the Italian governmental Budget Committee released an
amendment (Fifth Section) attached to the Finance Act. At a local level, several
regional, provincial and municipal authorities supported the emergence and
empowerment of GAS with small economic incentives (Schifani & Migliore,
2011).
Before that time, however, most of the GAS operated like single consumers or as
no-profit organizations or social promotion associations (Fonte & Salvioni, 2013).
Nowadays, even if they can still preserve their flexible legal form, the formal
recognition from the authorities has been relevant to classify them as a
non-commercial activity.
The GAS movement is organized in subgroups that act independently.
According to Retegas (1999), the activity of every single group is directed to create
a space for an ethical and sustainable food consumption which puts people together
rather than divide them.
A study led by the Coldiretti Farmers Union (2014) shows that from 2008 the
movement has increased by 400% in Italy, and the number of Italian citizens that
regularly arrange collective orders has reached 2.7 million.
The diffusion of these new forms of solidarity and social economies arises from a
new reflexive capacity in the consumers (Giddens, 1990), who reflect on their own
actions and modify them according to new incoming information. Furthermore, the
unprecedented rise of these types of economies can be seen as a specific form of
social self-defense (Guthman, 2007), since they are a response to the recession and
to social retrenchments.
This paper aims to spotlight how GAS can contribute towards a more sustainable
and democratic food system. In this regard, it will address GAS’s contribution in:
reshaping consumers’ behavior and improving nutrition; supporting local devel-
opment; and enhancing social integration.
As for the first point, local food networks are the alternative systems through
which individuals can have economic and physical access to food for a fair price
(Goodman & DuPuis, 2002; Renting et al., 2003). According to Crisci and Fonte
(2014), GAS’s members save up to 72.5% weekly, more than what they spend
when buying organic food through other sales channels. Since the vegetarian
purchase in GAS is less expensive than the omnivorous one, the reduction of meat
consumption renders GAS more competitive and improves the sustainability of
agrifood systems (Ibidem, 2014).
Hence, GAS can improve the economical and physical access to fresh and
organic food. In addition, the trend in consumption and lifestyle changes consis-
tently after joining a GAS: people consume more organic, seasonal and local food,
limit the consumption of meat and start to produce home-made food (Grasseni
et al., 2013).
The solidarity purchase groups can also reinforce local development. In fact,
their main goal is to support small-medium organic producers, who cannot survive
10 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

in the large-scale trade because they are not strong enough to compete in the
mainstream food system (Retegas, 1999). The fair price promoted by GAS is the
result of an agreement between consumers and producers.
Considering the difficulties sometimes faced by small enterprises, GAS’s
members set up pre-financing systems where consumers pay for crops in advance
and share part of the risk taken by the farmer (Savioli et al., 2015). This gives the
producers disposable cash to use for further cultivation and the certainty to sell the
product at the pre-arranged price (Grasseni et al., 2013). Supporting local devel-
opment leads to the boost of territorial heritage and biodiversity.
Concerning the social integration promoted by GAS, it has recently become a
central element in the alternative food network, thanks in particular to the
engagement of the SOS Rosarno organization (Oliveri, 2015). This organization
sets up alternative economic strategies and new social alliances in order to over-
come small producers’ impoverishment, migrant farmworkers’ exploitation and
racial discrimination in many Italian regions.
SOS Rosarno deliveres oranges, lemons and other products to the GAS spread in
Italy and still represents the main solution to racial exploitation in Southern Italy.
Concerning the role that GAS may play in promoting social integration, it may be
interesting to discuss the relationship between the Roman GAS Movement and
Barikamà, a cooperative set up by six migrants in 2014.
Suleman, Aboubakar, Sialiki, Modibo, Ismael and Moussa are six young men
from Mali. They crossed the desert by foot in one year; during that excruciating
journey, many of their friends and travel companions did not survive. After that,
they arrived in Libya and then they travelled by boat to finally land on the Italian
coast.
Because of its geographical position Italy, like several Mediterranean countries,
has become an unavoidable passage to escape from the migrants’ original countries.
Monzini (2007) describes the process through which these people become part of
an illegal system in Southern Italy. When they arrive in Italy, migrants are exploited
by illegal organizations: they are forced to pay for some services and are subjected
to rough treatment.
Barikama’s members (Fig. 2) were exploited in the tomato and citrus production
in South Italy, and in particular they started working in the tomato agri-business in
Puglia. There, migrants work from 8 to 12 h a day, with wages that range between
20 and 25 Euros per day, in working environments with little or no safety measures
at all (Bernaschi, 2013).
The Amnesty International Report (2014) states that migrant workers in Italy are
victims of ‘severe exploitation’ in the agricultural sector. The debilitating working
conditions lead to human rights violations and deprivation of basic capabilities,
firstly health: these people suffer from diseases related to the absence of safety
measures, malnourishment and undernourishment. Moreover, an unsecure job
determines housing conditions that are degrading from a socio-sanitary point of
view, like makeshift accommodations and overcrowding (Pugliese et al., 2012;
Bernaschi, 2013).
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 11

Fig. 2 Barikamà and GAS’s members. Source Barikamà’s website http://barikama.altervista.org/

foto-e-video/, Reproduced with Creative Commons Permission

As Brovia (2008) reported, more than 12,000 migrants work in the seasonal
harvest of tomato crop in Northern Puglia. Most of them are employed illegally
through the so-called “caporalato” system that is a gangmaster system.3
In 2006, after a decisive social pressure related to the living conditions of
migrant workers, several initiatives were started to provide an alternative response
to exploitation. One of these initiatives was promoted by the SOS Rosarno orga-
nization, which put a group of six migrants (soon to become Barikamà’s associates)
in contact with activists able to introduce them into the local food system in Central
Italy.
In January 2010, after a violent riot against exploitation and racism occurred in
Rosarno (Calabria region, Southern Italy), the six migrants moved to Rome. There,
they came across members of the Ex Snia community center and established contact
with the GAS movement (Diara et al., 2015).
Thanks to that encounter, Barikamà became a social promotion association in
order to gain legal acknowledgement. In the Bambarà language, Barikamà means
“resilience”, showing the adaptive and responsive nature of this civil society ini-
tiative. The Barikamà experience touches several points related to social inclusion:
learning a new language and a new job; community building; inclusion in the
workforce; crowdfunding; and the inclusion of Italian workers in the social coop-
erative “Barikamà”.

3
The Ethical Trading Initiative Report (2015), an alliance formed by companies and NGOs
committed to respecting the rights of the workers in the world, denounced the massive exploitation
of migrants in Southern Italy’s tomato industry and the involvement of the Mafia. As a conse-
quence, some Northern European countries have decided to boycott Italian tomatoes.
12 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

Fig. 3 Barikamà’s yoghurt: production and distribution. Source: Barikamà’s website http://
barikama.altervista.org/foto-e-video/, Reproduced with Creative Commons Permission

In the beginning, they relied on the African food culture (mainly based on family
livestock production) and on the knowledge gained both in their countries as well as
in Italy, so they decided to produce yogurt to be sold to farmers’ markets and to
GAS members.
GAS members gave them the opportunity to learn how to produce it with the
assistance of a local organic dairy producer who trained them. The response of the
consumers was mostly based on the willingness of several activists to test the
product and stay in contact with these migrants, so as to facilitate their integration
and develop a marketable product. Through this process, Barikamà’s migrants
learned new skills: dairy production, marketing and distribution (Fig. 3).
They presented the project “Barikamà” in the farmers’ market and during the
GAS meetings and this allowed the migrants to work in a team and to learn Italian.
Then, thanks to the support of “Casale di Martignano”, a certified organic farm,
they were able to transform their informal job into an enterprise that respected all
the sanitary requirements. In 2014, they started a social cooperative “type B”4
aiming to integrate disadvantaged people into the labour market.
According to GAS’s set of principles, farming methods should always be
organic. The migrants started to produce organic yogurt even without any formal
certification; firstly, because their customers knew that labeling is expensive for
small producers and could make them less competitive (Pimbert et al., 2006) and
secondly, because the milk they used to make the yogurt was organic.
Today, the yogurt they sell shows an organic certification since it is produced in
a fully organic dairy farm.
In 2014, Barikamà participated in a public regional competition launched by the
regional government concerning the solidarity economy and got an assisted loan of
20,000 Euros. However, since that money had to be spent before the government

4
In social co-operatives type B at least 30% of the members must be from disadvantaged groups:
people with physical and mental disability, drug and alcohol addiction; ex-convicts e.g.
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 13

started the loan, the cooperative launched a crowdfunding initiative and gathered
26,000 Euros in a few months.
GAS’s support was crucial, since they loaned Barikamà a considerable amount
of money and accepted to be refunded in food products during the following years.
The competition allowed Barikamà to buy all the equipment needed to improve the
quality of their yogurt and to do home deliveries, for which they needed electric
bicycles and new refrigerators.
Therefore, Barikamà also started to work as a bike company with a project called
“Pedalatte Bio”, which literally means “organic milk cycling” to delivery milk,
yogurt and other organic dairy products in Rome. They decided to use bicycles as a
more environmentally-friendly transportation method, harmonising with
Barikamà’s meaning of resilience.
In addition, the crowdfunding initiative not only allowed the migrants to gather
the money needed but improved their network of potential partners and customers.
Consequently, they developed enough relational skills to maintain and cultivate
relationships with other associations and social entities.
Hence, Barikamà is the final output of a dense network of ties between asso-
ciations and different civil society initiatives that deal with poverty, working
exploitation and discrimination, all complying with respect for the environment.
Moreover, thanks to the skills acquired in Barikamà, many members (who only
work part-time in the cooperative) found other jobs in restaurants and farms around
Rome. Many of them were able to earn decent incomes in just a few years and even
invest in their business.
Another relevant point of this scaling-up experience is that today the social
cooperative “Barikamà” also allows Italian people affected by disabilities to work in
its staff. Barikamà has decided to employ two young Italians who suffer from
Asperger’s syndrome (a form of autism), driven by the empathy towards them.
Indeed, when the migrants arrived to Italy they were not able to communicate
due to their language and felt isolated. However, thanks to the support offered by
the solidarity networks, Barikamà has started to rise as a relevant link in a social
promotion chain, fostering the inclusion of the socially excluded.
Hence, the Italians who have Asperger’s syndrome, dealing with the coopera-
tive’s website and home deliveries, can earn money, gain new knowledge and
improve their personal skills.
Barikamà represents an outstanding demonstration of how the integrated and
reflexive civil society initiatives can positively affect the local community, by
integrating migrants and other disadvantaged people.
Recently, the Restaurant “Grandma Bistrot”, the cooperative “Barikamà” and the
organic farm “Casale di Martignano” decided to participate together in a public
competition to run an organic local café. Thanks to their perseverance and appeal to
the institutional initiatives, they won the competition and are about to open the café
in a former Mafia store requisitioned by the authorities. The organic café is located
in Parco Nemorense, a town park in Rome whose conservation is managed by
Barikamà together with the other business partners.
14 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

6 Findings

Following what was said in the previous paragraph, the Barikamà project is scaling
up and attempts to combine several development dimensions.
Indeed, the collaboration between the GAS movement and Barikamà in Rome
shows an interesting example of how civil society organizations may cope with
poverty reduction, social integration, sustainability and local development.
GAS and Barikamà are what Isin (2009) called an “act of citizenship”, namely a
social act that facilitates the transition from the status of “citizen, foreigner, out-
sider” to that of a “citizen activist”, who demands his rights and exercises his
capability for voice (Bonvin et al., 2013).
This study has three aims. Firstly, it tries to understand whether and how
Barikamà contributes to reducing poverty. Barikamà as a project is based on a deep
synergy and interdependence between different types of civil society actors moved
by solidarity in terms of responsibility towards society.
Thanks to these interconnected relationships and thanks to a reflexive approach
adopted, Barikamà started to rise as a new entity. The cooperative provides sub-
sistence income to the migrants. In addition, through the solidarity networks the
migrants found other supplementary jobs.
Secondly, it tries to comprehend the role played by Barikamà in contributing to
the social inclusion of migrants and disadvantaged people through environmentally
friendly projects. The primary purpose of Barikamà is to allow a gradual inclusion
of migrants by developing several working skills. Indeed, Barikamà members
started working and developing skills related to organic yoghurt production.
Consequently, Barikamà represents a means through which migrants and the two
young Italians with disabilities can improve their professional skills and be
employed.
Thirdly, it tries to assess how reflexivity works in the relationships between
Barikamà and the GAS movement as discussion and sharing of knowledges.
Starting from their common attempt to support a more sustainable food system,
Barikamà decided to produce organic food to be delivered on bicycles.
Furthermore, the cooperative fosters local development: e.g. the conservation of
Parco Nemorense, running the confiscated Mafia store.
Barikamà as a “development project” allows us to understand how the synergies
between the different social initiatives are crucial and how civil society is creative in
dealing with new and complex issues. However, reflecting on the migrants’ social
cooperative, the collaboration with the public institutions seems pivotal as it has
allowed the early project to get expanded and strengthened.
In other words, civil society organizations may play a strategic role in the
transition towards a more democratic and sustainable food system. Nevertheless, as
Leonardi (2001) stated, they need to establish a dialectical relationship with the
institutions to reinforce their role and to become more important. At the same time,
public institutions should underpin and be inspired by the innovative projects led by
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 15

those initiatives that are strongly linked to community life. Hence, this paper
provides evidence of why it is opportune to foster virtuous synergies between civil
society initiatives and the public institutions.

7 Conclusion

This paper, starting from a holistic vision of the world in terms of interconnected
and interdependent phenomena (Capra & Luisi, 2014), suggests analyzing food
security in its multidimensional dimension. An all-encompassing comprehension of
the problem is possible only by deleting the dichotomy “production-consumption”
and by broadening the assessment towards: e.g. poverty reduction, environmental
issues and social integration. With this in mind, the concept of a “democratic and
sustainable food system” has been considered as more suitable to address the topic.
Moreover, a strong local and global coordination as well as a reflexive approach
is required in order to analyze the matter extensively. This paper assesses the
growing civic engagement around food through its reflexive nature of promoting a
wide social participation, debate and cooperation for the solution of shared social
problems.
This deliverable aims to deal with those civil society initiatives that contribute to
a more democratic and sustainable food system. On account of this, it focuses on
the solidarity purchase groups and their relationships with the migrants’ cooperative
“Barikamà” in Rome. That experience allows us to spotlight three relevant
considerations:
Firstly, civil society initiatives are highlighted. Thanks to a deep knowledge of
the social realities to which they are linked, they are able to develop creative,
dynamic and reflexive measures to address poverty, social integration and
sustainability.
Secondly, those initiatives represent a form in which individuals take care of the
world as a form of responsibility towards society, fostering relationships instead of
exclusions.
Lastly, civil society initiatives based on dense networks of solidarity ties may
play a strategic role in the transition towards a more democratic and sustainable
food system. Nevertheless, in order to matter they need to come out of the niche
dimension. This can be done by building an interconnected collaboration with
public institutions.
This paper provides evidence of why social issues to be addressed require more
than just a fertile civic ground. Indeed, an involvement of public institutions seems
necessary in supporting the civic society initiatives (e.g. the legal acknowledgement
received by the GAS movement in 2007 or the financial support received by the
Barikamà cooperative) and in assuming an active role in tackling new and complex
social issues.
16 D. Bernaschi and G. Crisci

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Lecture, 30 November 2000. University of Florence, Italy.
Sen, A. K. (2012). The snakes and ladders of europe. The economic system we need, 10 May 2012.
Shetty, P. (2015). From food security to food and nutrition security: Role of agriculture and
farming systems for nutrition. Current Science, 109(3), 456–461.
Sonnino, R., Moragues Faus, A., & Maggio, A. (2014). Sustainable food security: An emerging
research and policy agenda. International Journal of the Sociology of Agriculture and Food, 21
(1), 173–188.
Sonnino, R. (2016). The new geography of food security: Exploring the potential of urban food
strategies. The Geographical Journal, 182(2), 190–200.
Sonnino, R., & Hanmer, O. (2016). Beyond food provision: Understanding community growing in
the context of food poverty. Geoforum, 74, 213–221.
Stirling, A. (2009). Direction, distribution and diversity! pluralising progress in innovation,
sustainability and development. In STEPS Working Paper 32. Brighton, UK: STEPS Centre,
University of Sussex.
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70th Session of the General Assembly United Nations, 25–27 September 2015, United Nations
Headquarters. New York, USA.
Towards a More Democratic and Sustainable Food System … 19

Voss, J. -P., Kemp, R. (2005). Reflexive governance for sustainable development—Incorporating

feedback in social problem solving. In Proceedings of IHDP Open Meeting, 9–13 October
2005. Bonn, Germany.
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designing adaptive management and transition management. Ecology and Society, 16(2),
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Wolff, F. (2006). The transformation of agriculture: Reflexive governance for agrobiodiversity.
In J. -P. Voss, D. Baukecht, & R. Kemp (Eds.), Reflexive governance for sustainable
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Daniela Bernaschi is a development economist and Ph.D candidate in Political and Social Change
at the University of Turin and Florence, Italy. She deals with food insecurity in Europe and the role
played by civil society organizations, using the Capability Approach by Amartya Sen. She is
currently visiting student at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.

Giacomo Crisci is a development economist and MSc candidate in Food, Space and Society at
Cardiff University, United Kingdom. He is lecturer in the Master of Arts in Food Studies at the
American University of Rome. His work is centred around the solidarity purchase groups in Italy
and the challenge of scaling up social and solidarity economy.
We would like to thank Dr. George Baourakis and Prof. Konstadinos Mattas for organizing the
158th EAAE Seminar on Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture for which this article has been
written.
We are particularly grateful to our colleague Ms. Benedetta Tavani, who commented on an early
draft of this article. Special thanks also to Gabriella, Luigi, Elisabetta and Francesca for their
inestimable support.
The usual disclaimer applies.
Role of Buffalo Production
in Sustainable Development of Rural
Regions

Ibrahim Soliman

Abstract Rice is the main summer crop in Egypt. It is a cash exportable crop that
provides a main source of income to the Egyptian farmers and the national econ-
omy. However, the farmers used to burn the rice straw at the farm borders and
violate the law that forbids such action, which causes socio-economic negative
externalities due to the generated smoke from burning. The smoke generated from
burning is straw produced as byproduct of cultivated around 0.75 million ha of rice
crop in Egypt, causes social costs due to the probability of premature-mortality and
morbidity of rural and urban individuals and livestock. To conduct an economic
assessment of such negative externalities a field research was conducted. A targeted
ration of chopped rice-straw mixed with dissolved urea and molasses at 2% and 3%
of weight, respectively, was fed to buffalo-feeder calves for meat production at 40%
of the S.E. of the daily ration with a concentrate feed mix of 60% S.E. Such ration
was compared with a control ration of dray chopped rice straw with the same
proportion of concentrate feed mix. Two feed-response models were estimated for
comparison of the two rations on the growth of the buffalo feeder calves for meat
production. The Cobb-Douglas response function was the best fitted form according
to the economic logic, significance of estimated parameters and the magnitude of
R-2. The study derived the production elasticity, marginal daily gain, the value of
marginal product from both estimated feed response functions. The economic
marketing weight that maximizes the gross margin above the feed costs was esti-
mated under the response model of treat rice straw feeding plan (targeted ration). It
reached around 518 Kg live weight, while under the control ration it was only
around 384 Kg. The larger market weight of treated rice straw ration was due to
higher production elasticity, faster marginal daily gain, better marginal feed con-
version and higher palatability of the ration than the control one. Egypt imports of
red meat reached about 600 million dollars, due to lack of sufficient feed supply that
constrained expansion in red meat production. Therefore, providing treated rice
straw feed would provide additional source of livestock feeds which would provide
additional 80,000 tons’ carcass weight from fed buffalo calves, which currently are

I. Soliman (&)
Agricultural Economics, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018 21

K. Mattas et al. (eds.), Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security,
Cooperative Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77122-9_2
Other documents randomly have
different content
education in the schools of the town, where he spent his early life,
attending until nineteen years of age. In 1882, he began to learn the
drug business, and continued in that line until May, 1893, becoming
in the mean time a very proficient pharmacist. His first employer was
G. A. Bodenschatz, with whom he remained six years, when J. G.
Bodenschatz succeeded to the business, and Mr. Weimer spent the
remaining years in his employ. His genial disposition and good
character made him a favorite with Lemont people, and when but
twenty-one years of age, he was elected to office, and from that
time to the present he has filled some public position. In 1883, he
was elected Town Clerk and filled that office until 1888, when he
was appointed City Clerk, thus serving until the next election, when
he was elected. In discharging the duties of that position his time
was passed until April, 1893, he being annually reelected. At the
last-mentioned date, he was elected Township Supervisor, and was
again the people's choice in 1894. In 1893, he was appointed to a
place in the County Treasurer's office, which he held until February,
1894, when he was made deputy in the office of the Recorder of
Deeds in Cook County, in which capacity he is now serving. In the
fall of the present year (1894) he was nominated by the Democracy
as the can* didate of that party for State Senator from the Seventh
Senatorial District. On the 22d of October, 1883, Mr. Weimer was
joined in wedlock with Miss Lizzie V. Hettinger. daughter of George
Hettinger, who came to Lemont about 1863. He was a member of
the first volunteer fire company of Chicago. To them four children,
two sons and two daughters, were born, all of whom died of
diphtheria in less than two weeks' time, in May. 1893. The death of
his children destroyed Mr. Weimer' s faith in the efficacy of medicines
and caused him to abandon pharmacy. He is an ardent and
influential supporter of Democracy and a member of several
fraternal societies.
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W. S. WHITE. WILLIAM S. WHITE, M. D. fi> 6JILLIAM

SEYMOUR WHITE, M. D., is a \ A I native of Greenwood, McHenry
County, Y Y Illinois, and was born on the 3oth of December, 1864.
The records show, and the Doctor modestly admits, that he is
descended on the maternal side from Francis Capet (Coquilette) ,
the Huguenot half-brother of Louis XIV., King of France, who, on
account of the persecutions to which that sect was subjected, fled to
America, and, changing his name to Coquilette, became the
progenitor of a numerous family in Westchester County, New York,
and later removed with his family to Rocklaud County, New York. His
descendant, William Coquilette, the great-grandfather of the subject
of this sketch, died in Rockland County, New York, at an early age.
Maria (Garrison) Coquilette, his wife, died at the age of eighty-eight
years. Peter Cook, Dr. White's maternal grandfather, a native of New
York and a descendant of the Knickerbockers, married Eletta,
daughter of William and Maria Coquilette. Capt. William White, the
paternal grandfather of Dr. White, was born in the city of
Gottenburg, Sweden, in 1813, and at an early age became a sailor.
In his voyages, Capt. White carried troops to Mexico while the
United States was at war with that country, transported the first
shipload of stone for the construction of Ft. Moultrie, and twice
circumnavigated the globe. His wife, who still survives him, was
Mary Ehrhardt, of Philadelphia. William R. White, the father of the
subject ol this sketch, and the son of Capt. William and Mary White,
was born in New York City, in 1841, and has been engaged in
mercantile pursuits all his life. He married Emily A. Cook, daughter of
Peter and Eletta Cook, two children, William S. and Wilomene T.,
beiag the result of this union. William S. White came to Chicago with
his parents in 1865. He received his education in the public schools
of Chicago. His first work was in the grocery store of John A. Tolman
& Co. , where he remained a year. He later entered the employ of D.
S. Munger & Co. as office boy, and in three years worked his way
upward to the position of cashier. In 1884 he entered the Chicago
Homeopathic Medical College. At that time the course required only
two years, but he attended three years, and during the season of
1886-87 demonstrated anatomy to the class of which he was a
member, and also a part of that time to the senior class. He
graduated in 1888. Following his graduation, he was successful in
winning honors in a competitive examination, and during the years
1888 and 1889 was interne in the Cook County Hospital for eighteen
months. Subsequently he was called to Rochester, Nevr York, where
he opened and put in practical operation the Rochester Homeopathic
Hospital, commonly known as the Monroe Avenue Hospital.
Returning to Chicago, Dr. White entered into the general practice of
medicine and dermatology, in which he has since been engaged,
with office at No. 70 State Street. In the fall of 1889 he received the
appointment of Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Chicago
Homeopathic College. In 1890 he was made clinical assistant in the
departmeut of dermatology, and in 1893 was appointed Adjunct
Professor of Physiology in the same institution. In January, 1893, he
received the appointment of Dermatologist in the homeopathic
department of the Cook County Hospital, and still fills all of these
positions. He is a member
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JEROME BEECHER. 509 of the Illinois Homeopathic Medical

Association and of the American Institute of Homeopathy. He holds
membership in two fraternal organizations, being medical examiner
in the Improved Order of Heptasophs. On the 5th of October, 1892,
Dr. White was united in marriage with Miss Isabelle Stone, of
Charlotte, Vermont, daughter of I,uther D. and "Phoebe (Rogers)
Stone. To judge the future from the past, it is not difficult to predict
for Dr. White success in a much greater measure than usually falls to
the lot of the medical practitioner. His mind is active, his memory
retentive, his habits studious, his comprehension of the science of
medicine rapid, intuitive and thorough. His manner is easy, affable
and vivacious, with a dash of bonhomie, which, no doubt, is
inherited from his Gallic ancestors. It is not too much to say that
mental attrition with Dr. White would brighten many pretentious
members of the medical profession. JEROME BEECHER. HERO ME
BEECHER, among the early, subI stantial and most exemplary
citizens of Chi(*/ cago, was a scion of old and well-known New
England stock. His father, Mather Beecher was one of the pioneers of
Central New York, going thither from New Haven, Connecticut. He
was a tanner by occupation, and gave to his family the training
which has developed so much of thrift, enterprise and morality
among the sons of New England, and has made an indelible
impression upon the religious, educational and mercantile conditions
of the United States, and particularly the northern half of the
country. Wherever a leaven of Yankee blood is found in a
community, there are sure to be found churches, schools, factories
and sound business men, Chicago was especially fortunate in that
the major portion of her pioneers came from the land of industrious
habits and careful economy, and to this cause alone may be
attributed her wonderful progress in business supremacy, as well as
in social and moral culture. Jerome Beecher was born in the town of
Remsen, Oneida County, New York, January 4, 1818. His first
implement for self-help was the intellectual training afforded by the
village school, and he was early made familiar with the occupation of
his father, mastering all that pertained to the manufacture of leather
and its uses. His natural sagacity and shrewdness, with these helps,
enabled him to conduct the large business which he built up in later
years, and to manage intricate financial trusts which were placed in
his care. The year 1838 found him in Chicago, whither his father
sent him to look .after a stock of leather, boots, shoes and findings
which had been entrusted to an incompetent or unfaithful agent. He
managed this undertaking with such success and found such glowing
prospects in the young city that he decided to remain here and
engage in business permanently. At that time the center of business
clustered about the corner of Lake and LaSalle streets, and his
pioneer store was among those forming the group. He shortly set up
a tannery, which was destroyed by fire about 1858. During these
years, he had grown in wealth with the rapid growth of the city and
surrounding country, his industry and integrity bringing him a large
trade, which he retained until he decided to retire and give attention
to his invest 
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510 JEROME BEECHER. ments. His accumulations had been

invested in land and improved real estate. With other careful
investments, these had grown in value beyond his fondest
anticipations, and he found himself while yet in vigorous middle life
a man of independent means, and at the time of his demise, after
more than half a century's residence here, his estate had become
very valuable. He became interested in the gas business as early as
1850, and was made a director in the Chicago Gas Light & Coke
Company. He was interested in the Merchants' Savings, Loan & Trust
Company, and was one of the purchasers of the Chicago West
Division Railroad, of which he was many years a director, in 1863. A
recent writer says: "Among the enterprises of his earlier years, for
which he should be remembered with grateful regard by those who
survive, was his connection as trustee and treasurer with the
Graceland Cemetery Improvement Company, in whose peaceful
grounds so many once active in the brisk life of Chicago have found
their last resting place." Mr. Beecher had in his youth attended the
worship of the Unitarian society near his home in New York, and he
adhered to the faith which he there imbibed throughout his long and
useful life. The First Unitarian Society of Chicago was a feeble band,
in the third year of its existence, when he came to Chicago, and to
his zealous aid much of its subsequent strength is due. At his
decease, after completing more than the allotted years of the
scripture, the church prepared and had engraved a most beautiful
and touching memorial, which was presented to his widow. He was a
member of the Calumet Club, whose meetings of old settlers in
annual reunion gave him great pleasure. The Old Settlers'
Association embraced most of his business and social companions,
and he was prominent in its conduct. Mr. Beecher always
endeavored to fulfill the duties of citizenship, but was conspicious in
politics only once in his life. This was in the memorable campaign of
1840, when the Democratic party was overthrown and William Henry
Harrison, the Whig candidate, elected to the Presidency. Mr. Beecher
was a delegate in the convention which nominated Harrison, and
took part in the political meetings held in a log cabin on the north
side, near Rush Street bridge. In his business relations, Mr. Beecher
was a man of unspotted integrity, careful and quiet in action, and
reticent in speaking of himself or his affairs. One of his favorite
methods of benevolent action was the assistance of some worthy
man in starting in business, realizing that the truest way to help
others is to teach and aid them to help themselves. He loved to
gather children and young people about him, and a number were
taken into his family and educated. He was especially fond of music,
and to his own family connections and friends he was ever
generous. His style of living was unostentatious, and his habits were
simple and domestic. In bearing, he was affable and considerate,
and he always spoke charitably of men, making it a rule never to
speak ill of any person. Four years after his arrival in Chicago, Mr.
Beecher took a helpmeet in the person of Miss Mary Warren,
daughter of Daniel Warren, whose biography will be found on
another page of this book, and she proved in every way a
companion to him. Mrs. Beecher's twin sister married Silas B. Cobb,
another pioneer leather merchant (see skeech in this work). The
sisters so closely resembled each other as to be often mistaken, one
for the other. The first housekeeping experience of Mr. and Mrs.
Beecher was in a modest rented house at the corner of Lake Street
and Michigan Avenue, and they afterwards built a home on Michigan
Avenue. The advance of business drove them to several removals
until th* family homestead at No. 241 Michigan Avenue was
constructed. This is one of two or three which escaped the flames in
the great fire of 1871, and is almost the sole representative on the
lake front of ' 'old Chicago. ' ' Here they dwelt for more than thirty
years, and here Mrs. Beecher continues to reside. She is greatly
interested in benevolent work, and has been active in promoting
several of the most important charities of the city, regarding a
fortune as a blessing only in the proportion it is devoted to doing
good.
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LIBRARY OF THE OF
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CHRISTOPH BECK
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MRS. CHRISTOPH BECK (From Photo by W. J. ROOT.)

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LIBRARY OF THE OF ILLINOIS

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CHRISTOPH BECK. CHRISTOPH BECK. /TJHRISTOPH BECK.

In this enlightened I ( age, when men of energy, industry and \J
merit are rapidly pushing themselves to the front, those who have
won favor and fortune may properly claim recognition. Years ago,
when the West was entering upon its era of growth and
development and Chicago was laying the foundation for future
prosperity, there came thither from all parts of the world, men poor
but honest, and with their sturdy independence and a determination
to succeed that justly entitles them to a place in the history of
Chicago. Among the names of those who came here empty-handed,
and have through their ability and perseverance overcome obstacles
and earned for themselves honor, esteem and wealth, that of
Christoph Beck is worthy of a conspicuous place. He was born in
Koerner, near Muehlhausen, Saxon-Gotha, Germany, May i, 1832. His
parents were Christoph and Anna Eliza Beck. His father died when
Mr. Beck of this sketch was a small boy, and the mother in the
Fatherland many years ago. After attending the parish school until
he had reached the age of fourteen years, young Beck entered into
an apprenticeship at the butcher's trade, remaining at this
occupation until the date of his emigration from his native land. In
March 1852, he sailed from Bremen harbor, and ten weeks later
landed in Baltimore. He came direct to Detroit, Michigan, where he
worked at his trade a few months and then came to Chicago. The
three succeeding years after his arrival he was employed by C. B.
Albee, in the old State Street market. Ambitious to achieve greater
financial success than he could hope to obtain as an employe, he
engaged in business on his own account, and in a short time found
himself in the enjoyment of a profitable trade. Under his judicious
management the business prospered, and he widened his operations
until he became proprietor of a large butchering and wholesale
business, at that time one of the foremost in the city. For about a
year he was engaged in shipping cattle to eastern markets, and for
about five years, during the Civil war, he was associated in business
with Nelson Morris, the present wealthy packer of Chicago. In 1872,
having reached the goal of his ambition, he gave up business and
has since lived in retirement. On the 6th of June, 1856, he married
Miss Louise Arnhold, a most estimable woman, who has proved a
true and faithful helpmate. The following year he purchased property
on Fry Street and built a residence at No. 157, which has been their
home since. Mrs. Beck was born in Grossberndten, near the city of
Nordhausen, Harz Mountain. She is a daughter of Henry Christian
and Justina Arnhold, who came from Germany and arrived in
Chicago September 17, 1853. They had six children, all of whom are
living at this writing, namely: Louise, Mrs. Beck; Johanna, wife of
Carl Hoffmeyer, of Kansas; Augusta, wife of Frederick Bergman, of
Chicago; Charles; Ferdinand; and Frederica, now Mrs. Fred. Knoff, of
Lake County, Illinois. The father died in Chicago, November 27,
1890, and the mother November 29, 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Beck have
two sons: Louis, who learned the trade with his father, and
Christoph,
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512 GEORGE DERKES. who has been several years in the

employ of the United States Express Company. Both enjoyed good
educational advantages and are useful and respected members of
society in their native city. While Mr. Beck has always felt a just pride
in his adopted country and home city, he has never been a politician
in any sense, but has faithfully discharged the duties of citizenship
by casting his vote for the man he thought most capable of filling
the position. When he and his good wife located at their present
place of residence over forty years ago, there were but a few settlers
in that locality, the country around being mostly an unbroken prairie.
They have seen marvelous transformations in their day, and yet
retain sufficient vigor of body and mind to interest themselves in the
busy life that surges around them, and enjoy the good things with
which Providence has crowned their lives of industry and probity.
GEORGE DERKES. f2fEORGE DERKES has been a resident of b
Chicago since 1855, and has lived at his present residence since
1856. He was born in Gercom, Holland, July i, 1828. His parents died
when he was a small boy and he lived for a short time with an aunt,
until her death, and was then placed in an orphan asylum. He had
no opportunity to acquire an education in schools, and the hard
school of experience had to be his vehicle for obtaining knowledge.
At the age of thirteen years he came to Americaj sailing from
Rotterdam and landing at New York. Ever since that early age he has
been self-supporting and is strictly a self made man. The man who
brought him to America brought him as far west as Michigan and
there he worked in a saw mill for a time, later finding employment in
a tannery. In the following summer he worked on the lakes as a
sailor, and the next year was a fireman on the old propeller '
'Oregon. ' ' He entered the services of a carpenter in Buffalo, New
York, and remained thus occupied two years, becoming quite
thorough in the trade. He then worked his passage from Buffalo to
Chicago, after which he went down to the old canal on the scow
"Walker," to Peoria. From there he worked his passage on a
steamboat to St. lyouis. While there he had a hard experience, as he
was attacked with fever and ague and became very poor in flesh as
well as in purse. He next engaged with a man by the name of John
Smith to chop cord wood on Coon Creek, in Illinois, and worked in
the summer of that year. In the fall he returned to St. I,ouis and
entered the services of William Crood, on Washington Street, whom
he served three years as carpenter. He subsequently went to
Memphis, Tennessee, and worked at his trade in various places,
finally reaching New Orleans in 1851. In that city, February 16, 1853,
he married Sophia Munstermann, a native of Hanover, Germany. She
came to America in June, 1852. On the outbreak of the yellow fever
that spring, he left, with his young wife, and went to Louisville,
Kentucky. They remained in that city until 1855, an
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F. D. HESS. In the fall of 1859 times were dull in Chicago

and wages low, and Mr. Derkeswasindebt. He went to New Orleans
and during the winter earned nearly four hundred dollars. He came
back to Chicago in the spring and paid his indebtedness. In the fall
of 1860, taking his wife with him, he went back to New Orleans.
Owing to the trouble growing out of the secession and the early
approach of the rebellion, he was obliged to leave the South and in
February, 1861, returned to Chicago. In 1863 he started a flour and
feed store at what is now No. 439 Milwaukee Avenue. He built the
second house in the block. The flour and feed business not being
very profitable, he abandoned that and resumed his trade, and
began working for the Chicago & North- Western Railroad Company
in its shops, which were then located where the viaduct is now, on
Halstead Street. He later entered the employ of G. K. Russell, at the
corner of Clinton and Fulton Streets, in a sash, door and blind
factory. In 1870 he opened a grocery store on Milwaukee Avenue,
and continued about twelve years, doing a profitable business. He
invested his savings in real estate and has become wealthy. He has
been living in comparative retirement for several years, devoting his
time to taking care of his large property interests. He never held nor
sought public office of any kind. He deserves much credit for his
success, as he was thrown on his own resources when but a mere
child. He is a charter member of Goethe Lodge No. 329,
Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He has no children and is not
connected with any church, though an honorable, upright character,
and using his influence at all times for the benefit of mankind.
FREDERICK D. HESS. ["REDBRICK DAVID HESS, one of the r^
prominent citizens and property owners of | the portion of Chicago
where he resides, is also a business man of great ability , and
successful in proportion to his energies and ambitious. He was born
October 17, 1841, and is a son of Frederick David and Nannie
(Rippman) Hess, who resided in Wettenburg, Germany, at the time
of his birth. Frederick David Hess reached Chicago November 29,
1865, and immediately occupied himself at teaming until 1874. He
conducted the business with teams of his own part of the time . In
1874 he established a catering enterprise at the northwest corner of
Sixty-fourth and State Streets, and was located there until 1867. He
then purchased property at the southwest corner of the same
streets, and built a store, where he conducted a similar business.
When, in 1890, Mr. Hess looked over his accounts, he found himself
$20,000 the better for his financial transactions. He erected another
building at No. 119 West Sixty-fifth Street, in 1888, and shortly after
another building at Nos. 6319-21 Halsted Street, which he used for
business and residence purposes. He next placed a building at No.
115 West Sixty-fifth Street, to which he moved his home. October
17, 1892, Mr. Hess began the erection of a fine, substantial building
at the southwest corner of Sixty-fifth and State Streets, which was
finished in May, 1893. It has one hundred feet of frontage and
contains twenty-one flats and five stores. The building is one of
prominence, is eighty feet deep, and a credit to the neighborhood
and the city of Chicago. It is brick, with stone
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5'4 M. L. FRANKENSTEIN. frontage on two numbers of each

street. Mr. Hess has thus been active in doing his share of the
upbuilding of the better part of Chicago. He was married in 1874,
but was blessed with no children. He is independent in political
views, and votes in favor of the man, rather than the party. He has
been active in making improvements in Chicago and has erected five
buildings, including the largest and one of the finest structures in
Englewood. MAX L. FRAN-KENSTEIN. I AX L.FRANKENSTEIN,
deceased, whose active career of nearly half a century was divided
between Europe and America, was a member of a prominent and
scholarly family of Germany. He was born in Olbernhau, Saxony, May
22, 1849, and was the second of the four children of Dr. Conrad C.
and Julia S. (Fleischer) Frankenstein. Conrad C. Frankenstein was a
prominent physician of Olbernhau, where he died at the advance
age of ninety -six years. His children all showed marked ability.
Adolph, the oldest, gained prominence as a civil engineer; Ameal,
the third, left the Fatherland and became a well-known banker in
Brussels; and the youngest, Clara Sudoria, became the wife of
Professor Paul Wolf of Germany. Max L. Frankenstein, with whose life
this article is most concerned, laid the foundation of his subsequent
scientific attainments in the schools of his native place, and at the
age of eighteen began an apprenticeship of three years with a
druggist. He was then employed for some time at his chosen calling,
and later served one year in the army of the Emperor. Moved by a
desire to know more of the world and to find a wider field of
usefulness, Mr. Frankenstein left the home of his youth in 1875 and
came to the United States. After spending a short time in Florida he
continued his journey to Chicago, where he was not long in making
his ability known. For four years he was head clerk in the pharmacy
of C. C. Clacius & Company, where his services were entirely
satisfactory to his employers. But as his thirst for knowledge was not
satisfied and as he realized that his labors would have a greater
value to mankind if his studies were continued, he decided to take a
course of study in pharmacy. With this in view he returned to
Germany in 1879 and entered Leipsic University, from which he was
graduated two years later with high honors. He then continued his
studies for seven months at Wiesbaden, taking as a specialty
analytic chemistry. In October, 1881, he accepted a position as
manager of a large prescription drug store in Hamburg, where he
remained until 1885. In August of that year he severed his business
connections in Germany and again turned his face toward America.
In June, 1886, he opened a drug store in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This
venture proved so successful that the business was continued until
1894. With that strange unrest peculiar to men of scientific
attainments, the subject of this sketch decided to continue his
research, and at the same time to increase the value of his services
to mankind by pursuing a course of study at Rush Medical College.
He entered that institution in 1894, but was prevented from realizing
his laudable ambition by his untimely death, October i, 1898. Aside
from his scientific nature, Mr. Frankenstein possessed social qualities
of no mean order. He was a genial conversationalist, speaking
fluently in five languages, and generous almost to a fault. His skill as
an entertainer was greatly in 
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accurate

JOSEPH HERMANN. 5'5 creased by his rare musical genius

and his friends often called upon him to play the piano, on which
instrument he was a fine performer. He sought to cherish the welfare
of his family with a jealous care, and with them his happiest hours
were spent. Fraternally he was connected with the Royal Arcanum,
and with the Masonic order, both in Germany and America. Max I,.
Frankenstein was married October 4, 1887, to Bessie, daughter of
James and Hattie (Shaw) Wilmont. James Wilmont was born in
L,ondon, England, whence he emigrated about 1840 to Toronto,
Canada, where he spent his remaining years, dying at the age of
seventy-six. He was a typical English gentleman of the old school
and was loved and respected by all who knew him. Mrs. Wilmont
was born in Toronto, where she died aged forty-six years. Of the
three children of Mr. and Mrs. Wilmont the only one living is Mrs.
Frankenstein, who was born in Toronto September 9, 1859, and
educated in her native city. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs.
Frankenstein who will greatly miss the kindly care and guidance
which their father was so well fitted to give. Their names, with date
of birth of each, are as follows: Beatrice, September 9, 1889; and
Virginia, October 29, 1891. Mrs. Frankenstein was previously married
to the Honorable J. K. Fairman, who was born in Elmira, New York
January 3, 1849. He was a man of considerable reputation as an
editor, being connected with the Elmira Advertiser, and took an
active part in state politics. At one time he was Clerk of the
Assembly at Albany. He was a thirty-second degree ^Mason. He died
in Chicago August 14, 1885, and was interred in Woodlawn
Cemetery at Elmira, New York. His father, Charles G. Fairman, was
forty-five years a journalist and became known throughout the
country. He was founder, and for many years editor, of the Elmira
Advertiser and was prominent in public affairs. He was at one time in
charge of the insurance department of the state administration at
Albany. He was a prominent member of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows, was advanced to the head of the order in the state,
occupying the exalted position of Grand Master in 1878-79. He was
born at Lewiston, Niagara County, New York, and died at Elmira,
same State, at the advanced age of ninety-two years. Mr. and Mrs. J.
K. Fairman were the parents of one child, Edith, born Januar}r 24,
1881, at Elmira, New York, who now resides with her mother.
JOSEPH HERMANN. (JOSEPH HERMANN has been identified with I
the business interests of Chicago forty-five C2/ years, and is an
honored representative of the German- American population who
have contributed so largely to the successful upbuilding of the city.
He was born in Cologne, Germany, February 17, 1830, and is a son
of Charles and Katherine Hermann, both natives of Cologne. After
acquiring a good education in the parish school of his native village,
Joseph Hermann learned the trade of butcher with his father, and
continued to follow that occupation while he remained in the
Fatherland. In September, 1853, Mr. Hermann decided to seek his
fortune in the New World, and bade adieu to home and friends. He
sailed from Antwerp and, after an uneventful voyage of fiftyfour
days, landed in New York. He remained there about three months,
working at his trade, and then came to Chicago, arriving early in
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GEORGE NEHER. 1854. F°r two years he worked at his

trade as a journeyman and, with his savings earned in that way,
embarked in business for himself by opening a meat market on
Milwaukee Avenue. Later he established a slaughter house near a
small hamlet then known as Holstein. That part of the city, now
densely populated, was then an open prairie and considered quite a
long distance from the city. He was not long in building up a
profitable trade, which he successfully carried on several years.
While the Civil War was in progress, he was engaged for a time in
shipping cattle to Allegheny and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which
proved a profitable industry. About 1864 he started a meat market
on the southwest corner of Noble and Cornell Streets, when that
part of the city contained but a few scattering houses, where he did
a large trade until 1876, when he rented his store and retired from
business. In 1880 he resumed business at the old stand, but six
months later was succeeded by his sons, who bought him out. Since
then, Mr. Hermann has lived in retirement. During the years of his
active life he won success. By making wise investments in real estate
he has become the possessor of much valuable property, and is
numbered among the wealthy men of the northwestern part of the
city. In 1889 he built his pleasant and commodious residence at No.
414 North Robey Street, where he is spending the evening of his life
in contentment, enjoying the fruits of an industrious and well-
ordered career. Mr. Hermann has never aspired to public office of
any kind, but has supported the Democratic party ever since he
became an American citizen. He has always evinced a progressive
spirit by his willingness to assist in the promotion of all measures for
the benefit of his home city. On the nth of March, 1857, he married
Miss Dora Goppelsroeder, who was born in Baden, Germany. They
were the parents of a large family, only four of whom are now living:
Dora, wife of Christian Klingel; William, Christ and Mary, the last-
named of whom brightens the home of her father with her cheerful
presence. Mrs. Hermann passed to her reward June 29, 1897. She
died as she had lived, in the faith of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church. Mr. Hermann and the other members of the family belong to
St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church. In 1858 Mr. Hermann
generously assisted his parents and the remainder of the family to
emigrate to the United States. Of the five children born to Charles
and Katherine Hermann two are deceased, and those living are:
Joseph, whose name introduces this article; Anton; and Sophia, wife
of Siep Dornbos. The father died in Chicago many years ago, and
the mother July 7, 1898, at the age of ninety-three years. GEORGE
NEHER. 0EORGE NEHER.. JUNIOR, a prominent b business man of
Lyons, was born in Riverside, Cook County, Illinois, June 15, 1861,
and is a son of George Neher, senior, and Elizabeth (Mitsch) Neher,
natives of Germany, who are further mentioned on another page of
this work. George Neher, the man whose name heads this article,
was reared on a farm and received a common-school education. In
the spring of the year 1883, he left the farm and was employed in
the office of Dr. Congdon for a period of one year. In the spring of
1884 Mr. Neher embarked in the drug business, in which he has
successfully
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J. F. LEONHARDT. continued since that time. From a small

beginning he has made many improvements, and his business has
become the principal one of its kind in Lyons and one of the finest in
the country. Since 1883 Mr. Neher has carried the mail between
Riverside and Lyons, which is, in itself, a great responsibility. He was
married November 24, 1886, to Fannie, daughter of John and Eva
Caccer, a native of England. During her infancy Mr. Caccer died, and
the mother afterward married Philip Zacher. The family then
removed to Hamburg, German}^. At the age of sixteen years Miss
Caccer returned to England, and four years later came to Chicago.
Mr. and Mrs. Neher have three children, Agnes, Henry and George.
Mr. Neher and his family are members of the Roman Catholic
Church, and are influential and charitable adherents of this
organization. Mr. Neher is one of the enterprising business men of
Lyons, and is progressive in all his ideas. He has never sought public
office, but is staunch in upholding, by voice and vote, the principles
of the Republican party. He is well known and respected by his
fellow-citizens, and his social relations are the best. JACOB F.
LEONHARDT. (TACOB FREDERICK LEONHARDT was I born in Baden,
Germany, January i, 1831, (~) a son of John and Elizabeth
Leonhardt, both of whom died in Germany. John Leonhardt was a
manufacturer of wine. He was the father of seven children, only two
of whom came to America, the subject of this notice and Christ, of
No. 202 Canalport Avenue, Chicago. Jacob F. Leonhardt received a
good education in his native land, after which he learned the trade
of shoemaker. In 1853 he came to the United States and came
directly to Chicago, where he had some acquaintances. He
possessed limited means, but had a good trade and was willing and
ready to apply himself in achieving success. He was occupied at his
trade in the interests of others for a few years, and subsequently
began business on his own account, by opening a shoe store on the
corner of Van Buren and Franklin Streets. He continued in business
several years. About 1869 he moved to Harrison Street, near Fifth
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