ANVERSA DEGLI ABRUZZI, Italy — In a new twist on long-distance adoptions, sheep lovers can now select their pick of the flock over the Internet. A $154 contract entitles adoptive "parents" to a year's supply of their chosen one's merino wool and fresh cheese, as well as a photograph and adoption papers. The less sentimental can also choose to receive their adopted pet in the form of lamb chops.
The sheep adoption program was created by a farmers cooperative in a medieval village in Abruzzo, a mountainous region in central Italy that has become one of the more depopulated parts of the country as traditional sheep farming dwindles and young people move to the cities.
"People have tended sheep in this area for the last 2,000 years, and we want it to continue for another 2,000," said Manuela Cozzi, who with her husband's family runs an organic sheep cooperative and an "agritourism" inn in Anversa degli Abruzzi. "Sheep around here are in danger of becoming an endangered species, and we hope this initiative will help prevent that."
The cooperative farm Cozzi runs with her husband has 1,300 sheep. The local sheep farmers' association has 40,000. In all, Abruzzo has 350,000 sheep; at its height, before World War I, the region boasted more than 3 million. Cozzi, who sells her organic, hand-made smoked ricotta and wool socks by fax and over the Internet, said she sent her raw wool to her hometown, near Florence, to be spun or worked by local artisans because that cottage industry has all but died out in her area of Abruzzo.
"We feel a little isolated out here, which is why we wanted to use adoption to bring clients closer," she explained. She said she encourages new "parents" to visit their sheep and stay at her inn to learn how to make fresh ricotta by hand.
Since she launched the adoption campaign last month, Cozzi said, more than 100 applications have been received, ranging from a Muslim butcher to a college student in Bologna.
Cozzi's farm produces fragrant cheeses, using their sheep's non-pasteurized milk. The adoption contract includes 11 pounds of sharp pecorino cheese, 6.5 of ricotta and a choice of raw wool or knitted hiking socks. Organic fertilizer made of sheep manure is also part of the adoption package. So are sausages, sheep's brain and legs of lamb. 75 percent of the flock is destined for a tidy white slaughterhouse behind the main barn.