Regenerative Agriculture
Dio Pigadia is a permaculture farm that experiments and promotes innovative and alternative farming methods. Permaculture represents a holistic approach that goes much beyond agriculture. It proposes an integrated organization of life at a local scale where food production is not externalized. However, the transition to permaculture systems means rethinking our way of considering agriculture and experimenting with how we relate to each other.
Are we organic?
We often get asked this question. No, we are not. And of course, we are. For the moment we didn’t think it was necessary to pay and struggle with administration to have a certification that proves we don’t use chemical fertilizers. First, it seems unfair that we would have to justify and pay for this when public money is injected generously into the conventional system (free spraying of the olives in the area…). It is crazy.
Second, organic agriculture might be a step, but in many ways, it can be similar to conventional agriculture and doesn´t provide structural solutions. The idea here is not to criticize organic farming as a whole. We just defend a different option, more radical, which would eventually deserve a specific certification.
It is sometimes hard to tell the difference between organic and conventional: monoculture fields where the ground is processed mechanically with poor biodiversity. Only in organic farming minerals or strongly concentrated naturally extracted products are used as input to replace the more conventional chemical fertilizers /pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides.
Both these methods, conventional and organic, rely on massive inputs of petrol to work the ground and make/import these products. This is not sustainable.
No dig/no till
We use the no dig/no till method to preserve life in the soil by not destroying its structure mechanically. The mechanical tilling of the ground destroys the life in the soil (worms, bacteria, mushrooms…) which is necessary to keep it healthy. The fertility and productivity of agricultural land have diminished largely in the past 50 years, needing more and more inputs to compensate for it. When the mechanical work stops, the ground compacts, it is dead soil.
If you inspect the soil in a forest or under a bush in any place that hasn’t been exploited by agriculture, it will be much richer and have a proper structure, with air and humidity naturally maintained by the life in the soil. It is fertile, resilient, and protected from the elements, drought sun, wind, and rain… that wash off the nutrients and can turn soil into a desert. Floodings for example are mostly the consequences of conventional agriculture: have you ever seen a flood in a forest? No, because the soil can absorb huge amounts of water and store it.
We use organic matter (hay, wood chips, manure, residues from olive milling) to cover the soil as “mulch”.
This provides habitat and food for the biodiversity in the soil, which transforms it into fertility. This complex balanced soil full of life is also resilient against pests and diseases.
Biodiversity
Life organization is complex. We descover things that we would have not imagined some years ago. Yes plants communicate and exchange ressources together through the mushroom network. Yes bacterias work together with plants to create fertility. And there is so much we don’t know!
Low biodiversity systems (monoculture) are weak, prone to pests and deseases. That is why they need artificial pesticides and fertilizers to work. Protecting and enhancing biodiversity is at the heart of our approach. Biodiversity is the natural way to regulate pests and deseases.
A good example is the olive fly, the most important pest for olives. It lays its eggs in the olives and damages them. Of course in the monoculture of olives, there are very few predators of the fly or its eggs-worms. But olive trees near wild areas do much better.
All the elements of the system have a role to play, they have been selected over time for this reason. Symbiosis is everywhere. That is why we need to reintroduce and support biodiversity. We can do this by establishing a diversity of plants and habitats. Many plants host a specific life type, like the Mulberry tree with the silkworm. A variety of habitats, ponds, rock piles, old branches…are also essential. We make sure to leave or even create places where wildlife can thrive. Even in our vegetable garden, we like to have wild areas, tiny ponds and rock/wood piles to host biodiversity and regulate pests. We leave a whole area of the plot where we don’t enter to leave it rewild itself, even if we lose the production of the olive trees…
Another way to regenerate the soil is by rotational grazing. The animals (donkeys, sheep, chickens…) are being moved in a mobile system. This replicates nature where animals live in symbiosis with plants.
Modern breeding is a source of pollution because the concentration of animals in one place unbalances the system. On the other hand, rotational grazing is a source of fertility. It is amazing to see that where the animals passed everything grows better. The animals have “produced” heat, meat, and energy and yet there is more fertility after they grazed. Animals live in symbiosis with nature (and humans can too!). They have been selected through evolution to better their environment not destroy it. This is related to the qualitative input of animal manure that re-enriches the soil with bacteria and other elements. There is a relation between the microflora in the animal´s digestive system and the microflora of the soil.
Food is the link between living organisms and the soil. It is what makes us live and connect to the natural cycle.
