(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The butterflies dance in the wind, the air is full of big bumps, flies and bees. Among the trees in the vegetable garden are grown, among other things, sweet strawberries, strong ruccola and beautiful cauliflower. The soil is covered with straw. I visit Agricola Porto Ferro, the farm of Andrea Carfagna and his family in Sardinia near Lago di Baratz, northwest of the island.
It's scorching hot. I am sweaty, moist and my body is covered in dust. My hands felt different after my very first experience with goat milking, fumbling hands that almost in vain tried to squeeze the milk out as I listened to classical music and hissed from the winds in the trees. The goats are kind, patient and cuddly, clearly marked by the farmer's philosophy: If you are kind to the animals, they are kind back. Also, the taste of the milk gets better with happy goats and with classical music on full steam during milking. Today it is also Speech Zarathustra of Strauss we hear, otherwise the goats favorite is probably Verdi. When Andrea and wife Nina took over the area in 2009, the soil was depleted and destroyed by chemicals and fertilizers after 40 years of monoculture. The air is not as dense with insects as it is today. Neighbors laughed at him when Andrea planted wheat with alfalfa and clover with barley. He had no watering system either. Now the laughter has quieted down and several have started using the same method themselves.
The alfalfa and clover bind the nitrogen in the air through a cohabitation with Rhizobium bacteria, Andrea explains on our walk through the landscape of the small forest where the goats are located. In this way, so-called nitrogen fixing plants nourish the soil, without the use of artificial fertilizers. We also get to know, while enthusiastically pointing out to the earth, that he uses a five-year rotation system for the different plants, never the same type of crop in the same place until after five years. Andrea does not even use the term "organic farming". He only says that he runs the farm as he thinks it is most sustainable, efficient and economical. It is not profitable to deplete the soil or kill the micro life of the soil with pesticides, he says smiling.
Large parts of the field are left untouched – Andrea neither wounds nor plows. But old, local, almost forgotten varieties of grass and clover have emerged and grow here in their own defiant manner. This becomes animal feed – feed that grows on its own. He leaves other areas completely at peace, and now trees, which were once part of Sardinia's once famous forests, have now begun to return. This is good for the microclimate, because behind these pockets of trees and shrubs it is made shelter from the wind. The trees stay on the ground and prevent spoilage. And trees can turn into forest. Had more people done like Andrea and the forest really come back seriously, maybe the rain could do the same?
Neighbors laughed when Andrea planted wheat with alfalfa, and clover with barley, without irrigation system. Now the laughter has quieted down.
Because it is dry in Sardinia. In this area there is also little groundwater, and the small one is very salty. This has not always been the case. As in so many other places, deforestation has created problems. Most of the forest was carved in the 1800 century to become, among other things, railway sleepers on the Italian mainland. After World War II, the destruction of the original landscape became total, as tanks turned into tractors plowing up swampy areas in the region. Alien species such as eucalyptus trees were planted to dry out the soil. In this world of dust, it is hard to imagine the spice of bears and wolves, that it was lush and wet.
I think of the photographer Sebastião Salgado and the story of Instituto Terra that we know from the film The salt of the earth: After a long career as a war and disaster photographer, Salgado returns to his childhood valley in Brazil and begins growing the lost rainforest. As a little boy he wandered around in this forest, and it rained often and much. But with the harvest, the rain disappeared. Now the new forest lid has rained back. A tree makes no forest – but what about many? Imagine if the rain could return to Sardinia!
On another farm, a little further away from the all-color road, where I live in straw houses and work as a wwoofer (volunteer on eco-farm, ed.) This week, there is even less water. At Alessandros Paulucci's farm, it is washed in the pasta water. A shower is something you long to get rid of. Water from both the sink and shower ends up in a pond for reuse. The plan is to grow plants in the pond that purifies the water, because even if only organic soap is used, it is not good enough for plants to be eaten. So far, the pond water is only used for the trees. Here, too, the vegetables stand out between thick layers of straw. When month after month can go without rain, it becomes crucial to keep the moisture in the soil. The straw contributes to this.
Alessandros farm is quite off grid – not related to either public electricity or water. There are solar cells and a wind turbine. Right now we are working on a solution to provide enough power for the winter when there is little sun and wind. Norwegian Josefine Dannenberg, who happens to be here the same week as me and by far smarter than me, finds a solution with a bike that must be attached to the wind turbine in order to create the winter flow. She has put together the alternator; now remains to attach the bike to the mill.
In this world of dust, it is hard to imagine the spice of bears and wolves, that it was lush and wet.
In a valley near the farm stands 40 beehives painted in red, orange and yellow. They got Alessandro from a beekeeper, just as he was given the cow and donkey as a gift. He also has a horse. It lost its way here from a farmer's home nearby, fell in love with the donkey and was allowed to move in to be with his caretaker. Obviously such things happen when the farm is called One Love Community Farm. Under these idealistic and meager conditions, Alessandro and the other woofers work hard, interrupted only by classic Italian long lunches and late dinners. It's a good place to be, and the alluring beach of Porto Ferro is not far away.
Back on the farm to Andrea and his family. The sound of grain being mined. One cup at a time is poured into the tiny stone grinder. The grain grows in the fields around the house. In parallel with this, it is made in the room next to cheese from the milk we just collected. It takes a long time to make lunch. After the grain is ground, it must be sieved before being transformed into pasta, of course with eggs from the farm. The goat's milk is slowly cooked to a hundred degrees before the lemon is poured into the liquid. This way of making cheese, inspired by the paneer of the Indians, is so fast that we get to participate in the process. We see how the milk almost shocks and differs immediately when the lemon lands in it. It looks completely wrong, but is certainly correct. The cheese from the bubbling pot is poured over a strainer – and the water below is saved for pasta cooking afterwards.
The still hot cheese is gentle on the palate. Right from the goat, right in the cauldron, right in the stomach. It is thought-provoking to be reminded of how time-consuming it is to turn raw ingredients into food. Thoughtful to be reminded of how short-lived the food can actually be. Thoughtful to listen to such an experienced and idealistic person as Andrea, who is where he is and lives as he does, because he believes it is the most important thing we can do in our time. "Be the change," he says as the sweat runs down his forehead.
Andrea quit as a juggler and magician on the mainland to start working on the land. He brings out old knowledge and devises new. A knowledge that is not based on the idea that food cultivation should be like a war on the soil where the ammunition is pesticides and fertilizers. We are several in the ring and suck at what he tells us. It is not far from Andreas or Alessandro's projects, their works, to many of the art projects around us in our time. There is a short between agriculture and art that is ecologically and socially oriented. And here, under the blazing sun, we stand in the midst of an unarticulated social sculpture. Through Andrea's story, I have truly become "intimately connected" to the goat, to reuse an expression the artist Allison Hiltner uses about her work on algae. I have a goat's diet, milked her, cooked the cheese and soon, soon I shall eat it.
When we finally eat, the oil in the salad is what comes from afar: It has been exchanged with the neighbor, 100 meters further away.
WWOOF stands for "World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farming", which was established in 1971. The farm of Alessandro, Colinne di Porto Ferro, can be found here:
www.wwoof.it/en/.
