Teresa Bellanova

Teresa Bellanova (born 17 August 1958) is an Italian politician, trade unionist and former farm worker, who served as Minister of Agriculture from September 2019 to January 2021 in the government of Giuseppe Conte. In 2018, she was elected in the Italian Senate for the Democratic Party (PD), but in 2019 she joined Italia Viva (IV), the new movement of Matteo Renzi. Bellanova was also a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies from 2006 to 2018.

Biography

Agricultural laborer and trade unionist

Teresa Bellanova was born near Brindisi, Apulia in 1958. At only 15 years old, she started working as an agricultural laborer and later joined the left-wing trade union CGIL, serving as regional coordinator of Federbraccianti. She worked in the south-east of Bari and then moved to the province of Lecce, to fight against the caporalato, the gang-master system in which people, usually migrants, are illegally recruited for agricultural labour for little or no pay and under slavery-like conditions.

In 1988, she was nominated to the post of Provincial General Secretary of the FLAI (Federation of Agro-industrial Workers) for Lecce. In 1996 she became General Secretary of the FILTEA (Italian Federation of Footwear Textile Clothing), a position she held until 2000, when she joined the FILTEA National Secretariat with responsibility for Southern Italy policies, industrial policies, labor market and professional training.