Agroforestry
Agroforestry is one of our most important projects, and it has been in place since 2019 when we started managing the structure.
What is agroforestry?
Agroforestry is based on syntropic agriculture, invented by the Swiss agronomist Ernst Götsch. He reforested about 70 hectares of the Amazon rainforest, which had been extensively damaged after many years of exploitation.
His method is based on observing the plants’ ability to work in harmony with each other.
Syntropic agriculture considers four dimensions in the planning process: length, width, height (according to the plant’s need for light to grow), and time. This means planning by considering ecological succession through time to create a farm that can produce both in the short and long term.
The main planning steps are:
- Identify your goal
- Observe surrounding nature to see what grows around you
- Choose the plants to put in the system according to ecological succession and the desired results
Our Agroforestry Project
We started by reforesting a small area of the old olive trees, which were completely abandoned when we arrived. In 2024, we will finish the last agroforestry line and start reforesting the first part of the large olive trees next to the existing agroforest.
Over time, this project will allow us to produce fruit and vegetables to support our cuisine and offer our guests fresh and seasonal produce coming straight from our land. The aim is to make them fruitful again to produce Tuscan PGI Extra virgin olive oil.
The Agroforestry project was developed with the aid of Gennaro Cardone. He is an Italian architect who has lived in Portugal for 14 years, where he built his farming business by reforesting and regenerating three hectares of desertified land. He now cultivates and sells fruit and vegetables to Portuguese restaurants, and he also keeps a small herd of Iberian pigs that roam freely in a section of the agroforest.
I met Gennaro via Facebook in 2018 after contacting him. I had been following his activity in Portugal for some time, and it seemed like the right approach for the concept I had for growing fruits and vegetables together.
Upon arriving at Santa Lorica and seeing its potential, I immediately contacted Gennaro, presenting a potential Agroforestry project.
In October 2019, Gennaro arrived in Italy and held his first class at our Agriturismo. We then started the regeneration and agroforestation of a portion of our 3-hectare olive grove.
Today, after five years of experimentation, we can say that the project has borne fruit. We have a superb artichoke production for our kitchen; we grow garlic, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, and the fruit trees are starting yeld positive results.
We are proud of what we created together, and we have expanded our project to add rows of fruit trees between the main olive trees. This project will regenerate olive tree plantations’ soil, enhancing their productivity and health without the use of irrigation or chemicals.
