Being organic
The unexpected benefits of being on top of organic soil
So I've written before about trees and some particular places - Costa Rica, Italy, Montenegro - where the community of arboreal friends made a lasting impact on me.
And as part of my download of my experience this summer, I wanted to spend a moment to pick up on some thoughts and feelings about living back in Italy for the summer, at my wife's family farm.
For quick background, its centrally located in Marche, 15 minutes inland from the coast, with the Apennine hills running along the horizon behind the farm. They haven't had it long - my wife's grandfather bought the land and house, but the family have been growing fruit since they bought it in the 70s. They were one of the first farmers in Italy to grow kiwifruit. They've since expanded to grow kiwi berries and primarily grow pomegranates. It's a small farm - only 2 hectares, but therein lies the joy of the place.
You see, the whole thing is organic.
That sounds positively glib these days, as we all regularly get to choose between “organic” and “non-organic” everything, and I too thought it was a non-issue until I lived on a farm that is organic.
Because being organic means that it seeps into everything.
Of course, the produce they grow and mostly sell - pomegranates, kiwi berries, grapes, figs, peaches, cherries, apples, persimmon, walnuts, olives - are organic, but its the commitment to keeping the whole place free of pesticides, fertiliser and other modern and toxic practices that gives this place a feel of a by-gone age, something I figured would be long gone.
It's about the variety of life that is enabled to thrive.
Because the ground is free of fertiliser, and the trees are not treated with chemicals, life gets to flourish and one can see the interactions at every level on a daily basis.
I wanted to capture this, not in some sort of smug humblebrag (not sure I get to brag that much, I am not the one running the farm, I’m essentially a visitor), but rather because at least within my consumption of media, we don’t get anything less than a constant feed of disastrous narrative about ecological collapse, and I want to provide a distinct counter point.
What happens when life can thrive
On an organic farm, we are awash with buzzing insects day and night, which may seem annoying (mosquitos always are) but once you start to see what eats them, you can't help but accept them.
In the mornings, the oak trees have emptied and the birds are all in the fields, dining on the ground, catching the early-insects.
At night, glow worms dance between trees and bush, in a series of lightbulb flickers that I'd never personally ever seen before. I was so excited to be an adult and experience something so beautiful and fundamental.
I've seen praying mantis patiently awaiting night time prey; heard bat-shaped moths flying around our room in a manner as loud as a bird; a family of grouse calling to each other across the wheat field; startled hares darting away from me as I take my early evening stroll; crickets jump on and off my leg as I stand chomping on fruit fresh from the trees.
The only thing I haven't seen are the family of boar that my father-in-law accidentally stumbled in between (which, like bears, you are not supposed to get in the way of).
All this has really helped me grok the interconnectedness of basic life that operates in a plain like this; you can just dig in and find more things, or zoom out and see the patterns emerge as birds flock and animals graze.
It's also given me this absurd sense of hope about the future.
My daughter is not even one yet, and I've found myself holding this paradox that 1) yes, things are globally turning awful. It's not even global: the farm suffered from a chronic lack of rainfall this year, forcing us to skip the harvest of olive oil, and reduce the harvest of pomegranates but 2) if you tend to the land and just let things be, life will flourish, sustain itself, manage itself. It knows what it is doing if we just give it a chance and back off a bit.
Its perhaps folly to think this is the solution - Sri Lanka has decided to go 100% organic, and it is suffering terribly for it, it seems - but I can't help but feel that this reality - of a farm that is not simply an asset to be extracted of value (fruit as crops) but is a place where every level of life can live in a 2 hectare area, freed from the toxicity of nearby non-organic farm, which in turns feeds a better environment for us to live and survive off of.
It's one reason why we're looking into taking it further and being to integrate regenerative agricultural practices. I'm excited and hopeful to learn more.