What do lemons and oranges have to do withThe Godfather ? grant to a paper published in theJournal of Economic Historylast calendar month , a booming citrous fruit industry is to blame for the ascending of the Sicilian Mafia during the nineteenth one C .
The need for lemons and oranges explode in the 18th century after James Lind , a British Navy operating surgeon , came to this startling Book of Revelation : scorbutus could easily be prevented , by eating citrus fruit .
Until this point , lemons had been considered opulence goods , used for decorations and scent but not solid food . Then , between 1837 and 1850 , Sicilian exportation of gamboge succus arise from 740 barrel to almost 20,707 . Land devoted to citrus fruit cultivation in Sicily increase from 7,695 hectares ( 19,014 acres ) in 1853 to 26,840 hectare ( 66,320 estate ) in 1880 .
Sicily was one of the few position in Europe with the climatic and geographical sweet spot required to grow lemons , and it try out extremely fruitful ( pun intended ) . “ [ C]itrus cultivation give more than 60 times the average net income per hectare for the rest of the island , ” John Dickie , a specializer in Italian account at University College London , explainedin his bookCosa Nostra : A History of the Sicilian Mafia .
But lemon were extremely vulnerable to thieves who would cabbage into lemon tree orchards at night to steal the valuable commodity . This is where the mafia ( or , rather , the proto - mafia ) stepped in . Lemon producer hire homo in the " mafie " to protect their cherished crop and act as as intermediator between retailer and exporters . From here , they developed into a protection racket and , ultimately , a violent felonious organization we roll in the hay as the Sicilian Mafia .
Using two dissimilar datum sets ( the Damiani Inquiry ( 1881 - 1886 ) and a report by Cutera , a police officer in Palermo , in 1900 ) , the squad revealed a correlation between the intensity of mafia activity and the yield of citrus fruit – a parallel matched by no other manufacture or crop .
The written report authorsexplainedthat the brass “ arose as a response to an exogenic shock absorber in the requirement for orange and lemons ” . They may have been helped by a weak rule of law and a impoverishment - stricken population , but they set out their break in the citrus business organisation .
“ The point to take away is that crack - normal profits , together with weak institutions , may cause a [ gap ] that can be exploited by illegal activities , ” study author Arcangelo Dimico toldThe Washington Post .
The citrus tree industry may only be part of the chronicle , Baris Cayli , from the University of Derby , toldThe Times . " The fundamental reasons were societal injustice in the farming economy , the lack of effective land policy addressing the need of provincial , the administration of land by mediators , the link between the political class and elites , and the nationalisation unconscious process . ”
The moral of the story here – when life gives you lemons , make your own outside crime system .
