Diane Bohna explains the grazing system

 

Bringing back native grasses

A 45-minute drive to the east of Bohna’s ranchland lies the Sierra Foothill Conservancy (SFC). “Grazing is essential for re-establishing native grasses,” says rangeland manager Billy Freeman. Perennial native grasses have long and deep roots, often going 20-30 feet deep. Most pastures in the valley are re-sown regularly with annual Mediterranean grasses which make for much better feed because of their high sugar content. But their roots grow to just two or three feet and, like other non-native annuals, they are green and palatable earlier and compete heavily with the long rooted native varieties. In order to re-establish native grasses, Freeman has to time very precisely when and for how long the cattle are allowed to graze: non-native species will be rich in sugar and palatable earlier than the native species and therefore will be grazed harder. That leaves them little or no chance to develop seeds and mature. Because the annual grasses are so tasty, native species get grazed lightly which exposes the growth nodes, and once the cattle have been moved these grasses will be able to develop seed heads. Over time, native species recover and soil fertility increases. “We are seeing a lot of changes,” says Freeman. The level of biodiversity and water infiltration has increased. The bank of the creek was eroded, and the cattle rounded off the sharp edge so the vegetation has come back on the bank – there are cottonwoods and willows once again. And the thick layers of dead grass, which prevented fresh growth, have gone, and the grazing has restarted decomposition. Ninety acres of riparian pastures have been re-established next to creeks, by having them grazed once or twice a year for four to six days only.

“Grazing is essential for re-establishing native grasses,” says ranchland manager Billy Freeman

 

“Land needs cattle more than we need meat”

The SFC is a non-profit research facility, but can anyone make a living from ranching? Joe Morris, a cattle rancher in San Juan Bautista, says yes, it’s possible. For him, too, holistic management is key: “Attend to the needs of the whole – livestock, plants and soil microbes,” says Morris, and most of all, observe! He points out the huge variety of cool and warm season grasses on a pasture close to his house. He says, he was extremely surprised when he learnt in a workshop run by ecologist and soil scientist, Christine Jones, that grasses only make up about 10% of the species in grassland – the rest are forbs, broad leaves, shrubs and lots of flowers.

The ranch gets on average just 16 inches of rain, most of it from October to April. The grasses start to dry up by April, and even though it hadn’t rained in six months, there were vernal pools with rushes and, nearby, patches of wet soil underneath green salt grasses.

The ranchland on the San Andreas Fault

 

Unlike Billy Freeman, Morris does not use grazing to establish particular varieties, rather using perennials in general, which were in short supply when he took on the ranch. He has been finishing cattle since the late 90s. He buys animals aged 15-20 months directly from ranchers or at auction and finishes them at 24 to 30 months. This gives him the flexibility he needs for grass management and to react to factors such as weather events. The second enterprise is an Angus and Hereford cow/calf herd. To raise and finish all animals on the ranch wouldn’t be feasible because such a system is complicated and inflexible, and the market does not always reward it, says Morris. Lastly, he grazes cattle for other ranchers.

Morris markets the meat of his animals directly. Customers order ¼ or ½ an animal online, which means they will receive a mix of meats. Between June and November he delivers orders to 60 people at five different pick-up locations on each trip. The schedule is tight, customers have 15 minutes for pick up. The meat isn’t cheap, but Morris has a customer base of around 400 people who are willing to pay not just for high quality meat from grass-fed animals, but also for the land stewardship and ecoservices provided.

For [Joe Morris] holistic management is key: “Attend to the needs of the whole – livestock, plants and soil microbes,” says Morris, and most of all, observe!

More than meat

Ranchers should be paid for the ecosystem services their animals deliver, says Rob Rutherford. Before his retirement, he was a professor in the Animal Science department at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Raising sheep has been a life-long passion, as is playing golf. When his local golf club had to retire nine holes due to lack of water, and thistles took over, Rutherford brought in his sheep. It did not take long until 90% of Italian thistle was gone because “the sheep have changed the biology,” he says. Marketing the meat and playing as much golf as he wants for free suits Rutherford well. But to him, using sheep and cattle as ‘land managers’ is much more than a quirky idea: “We don’t know what ecosystem services are worth,” says Rutherford, “the Reagan Library was protected by grazed areas around the building, which acted as a firebreak and saved the library from burning down in 2019.”

Together with others, he is lobbying Cal Fire (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) to change the regulations and officially recognize grazing as a fire-fighting tool. Costs for fire insurance have increased dramatically, so much so that it’s become unaffordable for many homeowners, some properties can’t be insured at all. In view of the recent fires that ravaged parts of Los Angeles, premiums will likely increase further. “If homeowners were to get a rebate if their houses were surrounded by a fire break, they would likely be happy to pay a rancher to bring in animals to maintain it.”

Solar farms need livestock too

For 11 years, Katie Brown, one of Rutherford’s former students, worked on establishing a “sheep ecoservice schedule” for what at the time was the world’s largest solar farm project. Once the panels were erected, the area was seeded with a perennial and annual seed mix, containing grass and forb species that naturally occur in the area such as foothill needle grass, pine blue grass and goldfields. The grasses established so well that the team realised they’d need to move in sheep immediately. Today, the grass under the solar panels is grazed by 3,000 to 6,000 sheep, at about 60 sheep per acre.

Dakota Glueck, rancher and cattle coordinator at TomKat, tends to the cattle

 

The panels create a unique microclimate that changes the plant species composition, says Brown. Because they provide shade, evaporation, transpiration and ambient temperature are reduced. That leads to increased biodiversity, and native perennials from dormant seed banks start to flourish and the total biomass production goes up, which means the number of grazing animals can be increased.

Brown believes that ‘solar farm ranching’ or ‘agrivoltaics’ can work financially – ranchers get paid for the grazing services, and their sheep provide wool and meat for local markets. The cost of grazing a solar site is typically cheaper for the solar farm.

As for the San Joaquin Valley, Brown believes that fallowed land there can be restored to a native mix of perennial and annual vegetation. For any such project grazing is essential – sheep can even graze salt grasses – and holistic management is the tool. 

Creating a market

From creating firebreaks to solar farm ranching and golf course management, sheep and cattle can provide a whole host of ecoservices, as well as providing us with food.

Kathy Webster is the Food Advocacy Manager at TomKat Ranch Educational Foundation in Pescadero. She sees her role as a maker of connections. Holistic management benefits the environment, increasing biodiversity and soil health. But ranching is also a business and needs to be profitable. One way to achieve this is to encourage more people to eat grass-fed beef.

For Webster, getting beef into schools, universities and hospitals is key. In 2018, TomKat Ranch started the ‘Beef2Institution’ initiative and hosted ranchers like Joe Morris as well as university, hospital and school food procurement managers to discuss how to get meat from local, grass-fed animals into institutions. Most institutional kitchens source everything from companies such as US Foods or Sysco. And some schools can’t buy raw meat because they either don’t have access to a full kitchen or are not set up to receive raw beef product. The ‘Beef2Institution’ initiative was able to create cooked products, like cooked beef crumble and patties, which schools can use.

Webster also began working with Santana Diaz, a trained chef and Director of Culinary Operations & Innovation at UC Davis Medical Center. Their goal is to get more local, grass-fed beef into all UC campuses and five affiliated hospitals, and Diaz has been coming up with ideas for meals that are tasty but use cheaper cuts of meat.

A unique sales pitch

Sound data on the nutritional value of grass-fed beef, and research done on the benefits of holistic grazing for soil quality and biodiversity, have helped Webster to come up with unique arguments about why buying grass-fed beef from ranchers at a fair price through public procurement ticks all the boxes. Hospitals and other institutions have sustainability and climate goals. Webster does not focus on the low emissions of locally produced, grass-fed meat nor does she attempt to compete on price. Her argument is: buy grass-fed meat for a fair price as a means to reach the sustainability goals of your organization or institution. With the research done at TomKat Ranch, she has the data to show that beef produced in a holistic grazing system increases biodiversity and soil health, helps to mitigate drought conditions and flooding, creates wildlife habitat and, as a healthy, nutrient dense food, actually gives chefs and the people they cater for a lot of bang for their buck.

 

Photos courtesy of M. Kunz.

The back plots of grain at Sri Lovely Organic Farm in Malaysia

 

A brief history of Malaysia’s ‘rice bowl’

The northern state of Kedah has long been known as Malaysia’s ‘rice bowl’ (jelapang padi), providing about half of the country’s rice production today. Rice has been grown here for millennia [p.45], but centralised production was ramped up under the Siamese rule of Kedah in the 19th century. This was largely to feed the tin mines, trading ports, sugar and pepper plantations of neighbouring British Malaya, of which Kedah officially became a part with the Anglo-Siamese Treaty in 1909.

After that, however, a combination of cheap and plentiful rice coming from other British colonies (especially Burma) and the onset of a global ‘rubber boom’ that had (and continues to have) immense consequences on Malaysian landscapes and agriculture, the British rulers largely lost interest in rice from Kedah, and little changed for local rice farmers until independence in 1957. At that point, however, everything changed.

Living with the legacy of the Green Revolution in Malaysian rice

The domestic production of rice – a staple food for most of the population – became a key focus for post-independence Malaysia, and commercial, government-led production, with Kedah at its centre, increased dramatically in the 1960s. Despite some initial resistance from local farmers to the new “miracle rice” IR8 variety (which came out in 1966 and essentially marked the starting point of rice’s involvement in the so-called Green Revolution), the entire Kedah region was eventually transformed to conventional, high-input production systems by the end of the 20th century.

This shift, based on high-yielding modern varieties and synthetic inputs, caused the total volume of Malaysia’s (and Kedah’s) rice production to double between 1970 and the early 2000s.

Unsurprisingly, however, this also brought bigger problems: over the years, soil fertility decreased drastically, and farmers who could not afford the rising costs of chemical sprays and synthetic inputs simply abandoned their land, many heading to the city to find work. Together with ongoing urbanisation and a generational shift away from agriculture (not to mention the expansion of water-thirsty rubber plantations, which in addition to deforesting large swathes of land, have killed off much of the rich diversity of natural plants on which many communities, both human and ecological, previously relied), rural depopulation has been pronounced in these areas.

Innovation and adaptation – applying a System of Rice Intensification (SRI) principles at Sri Lovely

In response to this setting, after several years spent clearing the former farmland area which had been abandoned for over 30 years and observing what species grew or lived in the area, Captain set about establishing the farm in keeping with its surroundings as best he could. Working first on reviving and regenerating the soil, Captain began helping to restore natural soil ecology by selecting for some plants and animals, allowing the spontaneous dispersion of others. He then focused on the rice, favouring heritage varieties and traditional species (acquired from a local seed bank) that are better suited to Kedah’s conditions.

Following the principles of SRI (a low-input system of rice production first developed by French Jesuit monks in Madagascar, then codified and championed by Norman Uphoff of Cornell University), young rice seedlings are planted individually in a meticulously measured grid pattern (at least 25 cm apart), limiting nutrition competition between the plants while ensuring ample space, air and sunlight for each one.

This system, which has been applied all over the world, often results in a much higher yield per plant (if occasionally lower yield per plot) than conventional systems. More importantly, it requires drastically fewer inputs: up to 90% less seed, half as much water usage, and less need for chemical fertilisers.

At Sri Lovely in Kedah, what Captain also likes about SRI is that it encourages adaptation to particular settings and environments. Farmers used to be great innovators, he says, but we’ve “become lazy” because synthetic inputs take away the need to innovate or improvise.

When it comes to pest management, for example, Captain finds the best way is to “let the pests kill each other”. A number of selected plants, which attract certain types of insects, are planted as a ‘perimeter’ around the rice, maintaining a more natural equilibrium of predator-prey relationships and diminishing the risk of any one particular pest damaging the rice.

Lokman and Jun threshing the grain

 

Big problem, local solution – addressing rice’s methane problem

As well as contributing to much healthier soils, local ecosystems and local environments (by eliminating the use of chemical sprays), Sri Lovely also sets an example for more climate-friendly rice production on a global scale.

Worldwide, rice production accounts for over 10% of total methane emissions. The vast majority of these come from organisms dying and decomposing in anaerobic environments, such as when paddy fields are flooded, which also reduces soil diversity, killing off beneficial soil organisms such as worms and bacteria.

At Sri Lovely, however, the rice plots are not flooded but rather kept ‘moist’, and often drained. This exposes them to more weeds, but the rigid grid shape of rice plantings in SRI allows much easier weeding (done by driving a wooden stick with nails attached to it up and down the rows, wiping out any would-be weeds before they can establish themselves and without hitting any of the rice plants).

In terms of soil nutrition at Sri Lovely, fertiliser is fermented in blue tubs based on a combination of what the plant needs (which Captain trains people to determine by sight) and what is lying around the farm: some rotten dates leftover from Ramadan for potassium, maybe some baby bamboo shoots for phosphorus, or a few nitrogen-rich glaceriya leaves to help boost a droopy plant stem, for example.

Young plots of grain in the second garden

 

Spreading the love, maximising change

Once it was clear that this adaptable system was working, Captain has put more and more emphasis on the second part of his mission: to provide education, training, support and dialogue for others wanting to create positive, more sustainable, socially aware and ecologically harmonious food systems.

Education and sharing is a huge part of what Sri Lovely is about. Several of the dozen or so wooden, bamboo and thatch buildings dotted around the farm are explicitly dedicated to teaching: one a purpose-built classroom with an encyclopaedic library, another an open-air workshop and demonstration space, one a ‘mini paddy’ garden plot with an adjoined hut, where everything from initial seed selection to on-field weeding techniques to the concoction of those organic fertilisers, can be demonstrated. Hardly a week goes by at Sri Lovely without some sort of educational gathering or workshop taking place, whether it’s for local school children, the farm’s many international volunteers, foreign academics, other local farmers, government officials, and even Malaysian royalty.

In particular, however, Captain wants to encourage dialogue among farmers. Not only rice farmers, he says, but anybody wanting to learn from his experience or wanting to do something “in their own way”. This includes joining forces with other small farmers in order to discuss common issues, brainstorm potential solutions, and present a unified voice for actionable and impactful changes on a government and policy level (including the distribution of subsidies, which typically favour intensive conventional systems and even more damaging industries like palm and rubber plantations).

Lokman harvests the grain

 

One such initiative, launched in 2019, was the Local Farmers, Local Food gathering, where dozens of small farmers and natural farming advocates from around Malaysia were hosted for several days at Sri Lovely. The first gathering of its kind in Malaysia, this resulted in the presentation of a “Farmers Declaration” to Kedah’s Chief Minister, which has subsequently been built into a wider movement in recent years.

While the on-farm activities and daily life at Sri Lovely have changed little in the past 10 years, every year it seems that the dedication of Captain and his hard-working team is attracting more and more attention. It’s no surprise that, with the growth of demand for organic products rising both within Malaysia and internationally, more and more interest is being shown from producers and industry players to see how they can take advantage.

Luckily for them, and for many of us, people like Captain were at least 20 years ahead of them in this thinking. So, there is a well-established framework and network, one that can be crucial for encouraging a push towards more sustainable, equitable and healthy food systems.

It may only be one example from one particular part of the world, but the Sri Lovely story speaks to a more universal theme: that going your own way and setting an example for achievable, workable solutions can generate a ripple effect of change, inspiring action among grassroots changemakers and those shaping policy alike.

To read more from David, see his previous piece for the SFT about a similar project in Cyprus which is using chickens to help restore soils and reduce reliance on chemicals. You can also visit his website.

All images courtesy of David McKenzie.

The Kot-Kot project’s food waste bins which are used as a food source for the chickens – credit to @kotkotcyprus on Instagram.

 

As a result, almost all of that EU-leading food waste in Cyprus ends up in landfill, where it decomposes and emits high levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with nearly 30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a 100-year period (and a staggering 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale).

Intercepting some of this food waste, therefore, seemed a logical way to provide food for the chickens, and so Kot-Kot started establishing food waste collection and donation networks with local schools, restaurants, hotels and businesses. This also led to the creation of a successful educational programme with one school in Nicosia, in which 800 kids collected scraps that they then fed to the chickens, while also learning about the importance of food production working with, rather than against, nature.

All in all, it’s a nice, happy story. The problem, however, is that it seems unlikely to continue, since the project has been unable to attract any kind of funding or support from local institutions or businesses.

One very important part of the project, according to Netien, is being able to measure its impact, so it can be used as a formula for others to follow. After all, if we are truly to transition to sustainable food and farming systems, we need quantifiable data – as facilitated by frameworks like the Global Farm Metric – that can prove positive results and highlight potential shortcomings of different solutions.

But having the ability to measure and quantify the impact precisely, is important for being able to replicate the Kot-Kot project elsewhere. For example, having more agronomic data on how many chickens should be grazed, at which parts of the olive grove (e.g. according to tree age), and for how long, based on leaf analysis from the olive trees showing exactly how much nitrogen the chickens are delivering (so as not to make the trees ‘too happy’ that they don’t produce fruit) would be useful. But until the project gets upscaled, access to such resources is limited.

Kot-Kot was initially estimated to be capable of scaling up to having 15,000 chickens on the grove, saving 550,000 kg of food waste from landfill (and 1.15 million kg of CO₂) per year, but it seems unlikely to be able to do so now.

The idea of using food scraps to feed chickens, or using chickens as a source of fertiliser and pest control as part of low-input farming systems, is nothing new, of course. Trudging the slop bucket out to the pigs or chooks (despite technically being illegal) is a well-worn trope of British barnyard life; ‘chicken tractors’ have been used by organic veg farmers for years; and municipal authorities in French and Belgian towns have even been handing out free chickens to local residents to help deal with food waste, for at least a decade.

The chickens at the Kot-Kot project scratch and fertilise the orange grove – credit to @kotkotcyprus on Instagram.

 

Still, what makes the Kot-Kot example different is that this is not just a small household or hobby farmer feeding a few scraps to a few hens. This is an example of a sophisticated farming system producing a high-quality commercial product: certified organic extra virgin olive oil, with exceptionally high levels of healthy polyphenols.

Similarly, using would-be waste food instead of costly energy-intensive stockfeed, while also lessening reliance on chemical fertilisers, could provide obvious advantages for building resilience and sustainability in farming systems.

But things aren’t quite that simple in the UK. There is an ongoing debate and discussion around allowing food waste to be used as livestock feed in the UK (especially in the pork industry, which shows strong producer support for the move), just as it had been for hundreds of years before the Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001. But it is still not allowed, and many are wary of bringing it back – particularly in an unregulated form and particularly with bird flu on the rise, whether or not it’s used to produce food for human consumption.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of corporate and industrial interest in food waste for biofuel production. Although there are serious concerns about the sustainability of biomethane production, it seems to be a large part of the UK Government’s pledge to be carbon neutral by 2050. Recent legislation obligating businesses (this year) and households (next year) to separate food waste from other waste streams, combined with plans to open dozens more biofuel processing plants, seems to back this up. Food waste is one of the two main ‘feedstocks’ used to make biofuel (along with specifically grown crops, such as maize), accounting for around 30% of biofuel inputs. In other words, this expanding industry has a vested interest in increasing the amount of food waste that gets converted into biofuel and would be unlikely to take kindly to the idea of it being given over to livestock production or other industries.

Going back to that opening idea, though, of needing a combination of different solutions in order to bring about true transition to sustainable food systems – it could be worth using the Kot-Kot example to help think about a few things.

Is the UK’s supercharged drive towards biomethane production putting a lot of eggs in one (potentially very damaging and unsustainable) basket? Instead, is it time to reassess the safe use of food waste as animal feed, and therefore reduce reliance on costly, energy, land and emissions-heavy feed? What about using food-waste-fed chickens, as one means of lessening reliance on the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilisers?

It may be a seemingly simple system, but the questions that Kot-Kot provokes about our wider food system are complex. By showing how the health of soil, plants, animals and people can be connected in mutually beneficial ways, Kot-Kot reminds us that the future of farming may lie not in single solutions, but in integrated, mixed systems that recycle nutrients, reduce waste and regenerate soils. Crucially, initiatives like Kot-Kot can only flourish if they are properly supported and rewarded for the multiple public goods they deliver and recognised as vital building blocks of a resilient food and farming future.

 

To find out more about the Kot-Kot project, visit their website or follow them on Instagram.

Trees showing ‘rust’ are a potential early sign detecting xylella infection

 

Big production, small scale

Following another year of heat waves in Spain and the ongoing Xylella fastidiosa outbreaks, the global price of olive oil has been at historically high levels throughout the first half of 2024. In both cases, the vulnerability of relying on intensive, yield-driven conventional monocultures has become plain. The current situation is tough, yet the fallout could end up bringing positive changes – especially if it can help to rebalance the supply system, encouraging smaller, more sustainable producers to compete in a way that, until recently, has been economically unfeasible.

Italy is one of the world’s top olive oil producers, and Puglia is (by far) Italy’s largest olive oil-producing region. Even in the years since the arrival of Xylella fastidiosa in the region, Puglia has continued to produce around half of Italy’s total olive oil output, amounting to approximately 15% of total worldwide production.

But although Puglia is a major producer in the olive oil industry, it is not a major industrial producer. There are certainly some big operators, but Puglia doesn’t have the same kind of regimented, large-scale, often state-run systems of other major olive producers like Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. Instead, Puglia’s olive sector is largely made up of small and medium-sized growers, many of them harvesting from simple family plots. Between them, these plots contain a huge number of different varieties, many of them planted alongside other species (especially fig and almond). Some trees are over 1000 years old, gnarled and unruly, while others are small, trimmed and spindly, planted in the past 10 years. This diversity ensures a relative degree of resilience within Puglia’s olive industry.

However, there is one factor working against this resilience: the disappearance of people from the landscape.

Diversity and defence

The spread of Xylella fastidiosa is visibly much worse in some parts of Puglia than others. The regional government has a shifting system of red, orange and green ‘zones’, according to the risk and spread of the bacteria in that area. But the designation of these zones can be arbitrary. Even within one geographical area, the impact of the bacteria can be significantly different from one grove to the next, and even from one tree to the next.

“There is no one biological reason why one grove or tree might be more impacted than another,” says Nando Stefano, an olive farmer just outside Lecce. “Various natural factors could come into it: the genetic variety of the olive tree, the temperature and weather patterns of the local ecosystem, the structure of the soil or the slope of the land, for example.” However, he says that there is one factor that almost certainly dictates how good or bad the impact of Xylella fastidiosa can be on the trees: the presence of people.

If the trees are regularly tended, if people are living on or near the land, then early warning signs of an infected tree can more easily be detected. “There are many different treatments available to stop the spread of the bacteria, and with proper management some trees can even keep producing while partly infected.” So, in most cases, an outbreak of Xylella fastidiosa can be managed more easily, even kept under control, if people are keeping an eye on the trees.

But herein lies the issue, and part of what started the problem – a lot of these olive trees are left alone for most of the year.

An abandoned landscape

As in many other parts of the world, rural depopulation is a massive problem. As younger generations leave for better opportunities or turn to other professions, and older generations pass on, the traditional ways of life and farming are becoming increasingly less common. This trend has been going on for a while: the average age of Italian farmers has been getting higher and higher, and the number of small farms bought up and consolidated by bigger companies has been increasing steadily for decades. But recently it has gotten worse. In the 10 years from 2010-2020 alone, the number of farms in Italy shrunk by one-third. This has meant fewer people on the land, more centralisation of production, and greater reliance on ‘quick fix’ methods like chemical pesticides and fertilisers.

Fabio Gatti, a local olive grower from Ostuni who is also an academic at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, has researched how these pre-existing factors in Puglia – rural depopulation and a reduction of practices in landscape care due to the simultaneous increase in agricultural input costs and reduction in olive oil market prices – provided conditions in which an outbreak of a pest (like Xylella fastidiosa) was much more likely.

Also, it’s not like some killer zombie situation as soon as the bacteria is detected: some trees can keep producing while infected, and other varieties seem to be totally resistant. The problem is having people around to detect it.

The view from the hill town of Ostuni looking down towards the patchwork of the ‘monumental Olive Grove’ towards the sea

 

Part of the problem in keeping people on the land is the difficulty that smaller-scale Italian producers have in competing with bigger producers in other countries. Spain, for example, dominates the global olive oil market, typically producing around half of the world’s total. About 75% of this comes from Andalusia (particularly around Jaén), where an intensive and damaging olive monoculture system (initially set up under General Franco’s authoritarian regime) has been creaking under the pressures of climate change. Despite these climatic pressures — and largely buoyed by EU subsidies — Spanish producers have typically been able to produce extra virgin olive oil at a much lower cost, on average, than their Italian counterparts.

However, that has changed recently. Due to heat waves and drought in each of the past two years, the total olive harvest in Andalusia (and Spain more broadly) has been barely half what it had been in each of the previous five years. This situation has been similar in other major production regions, many of which feature expansive groves in hot, arid areas that prioritise the productivity of high-yielding varieties, relying heavily on extractive irrigation. The impact of the extreme heat in these areas has drastically reduced the supply of olives and olive oil on the global market.

The disruption that this has caused, however, and the frailties it reveals, is where smaller growers can take advantage.

Lots of little

Despite conventional systems becoming more widespread in Puglia with rural depopulation, it still has a greater degree of diversity than other major production regions. With this relative diversity (and less extreme climate), the harvest in Puglia has been “much less affected by the drought and heat waves than other major growing regions,” says Di Yang, a commodity market expert speaking on behalf of the Social and Economic Development Stream in the Markets and Trade Division of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), in Rome. “That’s not to say Puglia hasn’t been affected by extreme climate events this year – for example, heavy rainfall in spring caused damage during the flowering season. But overall, it’s been much less bad than other major growing regions.”

According to Mladen Todorovic, an advisor on sustainable water usage in agriculture and director of Bari’s International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies, Puglia’s patchwork of olive groves offers huge potential for a sustainable shift in the industry. “There’s an enormous amount, 1 trillion euros worth, already sitting there in the EU budget for their much-touted ‘Green Deal’. It’s far from perfect, but 10% of that is nominally set aside to dedicate to rural development and sustainable agriculture. There aren’t many better uses for it sitting right in front of us.”

If farmers – particularly young farmers – can be attracted and new initiatives encouraged, then the landscape already established in Puglia can be a launchpad for showcasing some small-scale, low-impact alternatives to the vulnerable industrial production that currently dominates the market.

Fortunately, there are already signs of hope that people (and young people in particular) might have more incentive to come back to Puglia’s wonderful olive groves. Gatti sells some of his oil through XFarm Agricoltura Prossima, a local cooperative who have converted 50 acres of land confiscated from the Mafia into a social and ecologically focused agricultural hub. They offer community support, technical training, research, community events and consultation for people trying to get into food production, as well as plenty of positive vibes. There is also momentum on a ‘back to the land’ movement among disgruntled young urban professionals in Italy (and elsewhere), which could be a positive factor if channelled in the right direction. And an Italian government initiative also offers loans for farmers under 40 to buy land, in a bid to address “generational change” in agriculture in southern Italy.

Hope after Puglia’s ‘Olive Apocalypse’?

It’s a small sample, but the bits and pieces of this model emerging in the shadow of the Xylella outbreak in Puglia, show hope. They could be taken up elsewhere and serve as an example of how olive oil can continue being produced, at scale, while also being better protected against the vulnerabilities of climate change and conventional agriculture.

In time, who knows? Maybe just like 40-degree summers are becoming less extreme and even ‘normal’, we will see a ‘new normal’ for olive oil production – something that looks less like enormous, miles-long lines of monocultures across barren landscapes, and more like a vibrant patchwork of different, small production types, in keeping with their surrounding environment and connected to thriving rural communities.

Dare to dream, right?

All images courtesy of David McKenzie.

With landmines an ongoing threat in many parts of Cyprus, agriculture has only been allowed to return in pockets over the past decade or so.

 

Around us is a deserted landscape of pale hills and scrubby bushes, speckled with occasional tufts of trees struggling to hold onto every scrap of chlorophyll-greenness that they can. The gridded block of spindly trees in which we are standing is clearly young – no more than 10 years old – and still looks like an add-on to this landscape, rather than part of it. It’s like a sticking plaster, stuck over a grazed elbow, with blots of skin still visible around its edges. This landscape doesn’t strike you immediately as a place where you could be growing the best crops in the world. But by some measures, that’s exactly what it is.

The healthiest olive oil

The crops here are olives – specifically, olives pressed for oil – and the measure we are talking about is the health and nutritional quality of olive oil. If this is judged by its phenolic compound (or polyphenol) quotient, as it often is, then Atsas leads the world in this regard.

Atsas Farm was set up here a decade ago. It was a project to try and produce olive oil in a region that had been deserted for half a century, with many families having been displaced on either side of the conflict. Atsas employed advanced organic and regenerative farming principles, in the hope of designing an agricultural ecosystem that is diverse, resilient and will last through time, ensuring it is sustainable for future generations.

In 2016, when the first trees started fruiting and were taken to be tested for qualitative analysis, Atsas were surprised to learn that their oil contained the highest-ever recorded levels of polyphenols, a group of naturally-occurring compounds abundant in many plants. The next year, having shifted even more focus towards encouraging high levels of phenolic compounds, they doubled their own world record.

Olive oil from Atsas Organics in Cyprus contains the highest levels of nutritious polyphenols ever recorded.

 

Olive oil is the centrepiece of the famously healthy ‘Mediterranean diet’. Scientists in recent decades have identified that much of this is due to the presence of polyphenols, which often have strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. More importantly, olives naturally contain certain enzymes that, when pressed for oil, ‘unlock’ these polyphenols and make them bioavailable to us.

The most prevalent phenolic compounds in olive oil are oleuropein, oleocanthal and hydroxytyrosol. Oleuropein and oleocanthal, in particular, have routinely been shown to have immense health-giving qualities: from reduction of blood pressure and anti-cancer effects, to pain relief and staving off Alzheimer’s Disease, as well as being proven to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The European Union – whose member states account for around two-thirds of the world’s total olive oil production – use the concentration of phenolic compounds as a primary measure of whether a particular olive oil may be marketed and/or labelled with certain health claims: EU Regulation 432/2012 states that the level of polyphenols present needs to be at least 5mg per 20g (or 250mg per litre). The oil from Atsas routinely measures over 2000mg/L – and their highest ever is closer to 5000mg/L.

 

How did this happen?

“The good thing about planting organically in the buffer zone,” says Anastasia, “is that you are starting with a pure, uncontaminated soil.”

“Nothing has been degraded. Nothing has been tilled or cultivated here to bring the insects or the fungus, which pose the biggest threats to organic olive oil production. So, you have a clean start for building organic and sustainable systems.”

Much of Cyprus’s “Buffer Zone” has been off limits for nearly 50 years.

 

The soil structure helps with water retention and nutrient uptake for the trees, and the ecosystem beneath the ground has been allowed to go on, undisturbed, since the 1970s. This makes it much easier to start an organic system of production than trying to convert land that has been heavily cultivated, sown and/or pumped with chemicals for years or decades.

This is not the only factor behind Atsas’ success, though.

Into this neglected soil, Atsas have applied a highly sophisticated organic and regenerative farming system, focused on controlling as many variables as they can: from setting up innovative water-catchment areas and installing drip irrigation, to maintaining the carefully pruned ‘cup-shape’ of the trees, in order to allow equal light, oxygen and airflow, minimising the risk of fungal or insect infestation. Although the soil is not disturbed, adding green manure, beneficial microbes and mycorrhizae are among the approaches employed to help build soil health.

There’s also careful selection of olive varieties and control of harvest times. The three olive varieties Atsas grows – Kalamon, Koroneiki and Cypriot – are chosen carefully and staggered so as to pick, by hand, each one early in its ripening stage (when olives are at their greenest and levels of polyphenols are at their highest). They are then taken to Atsas’ high-tech mill within 30 minutes of being picked, minimising risk of oxidation (which deteriorates the olives’ nutritional benefits).

The ‘Kalamon’ olive variety, also known as Kalamata, typically has higher levels of healthy, phenolic compounds than other types of olives.

 

That’s not to say there aren’t significant challenges – there are.

“To me,” says Panteli, “organic farming is like gambling: sometimes, you play by the rules and you win; other times, you play by the rules and you lose.” Dealing with the increasingly extreme weather changes throughout the seasons are times when you often “lose”.

Cyprus has had extremely little rain this summer, which is nothing new. There were also devastating wildfires and challenging heat waves that, again, came as little surprise to many here.

“The heat is no problem, the olives can handle it,” says Nicolas Netien, an environmental engineer and organic farming expert, who was one of the founders of Atsas Organics. “The problem now, though, is the change of patterns. Things are becoming less and less predictable or reliable, and so you need systems that are more adaptable and resilient.”

From one year to the next, it’s becoming harder and harder to predict what will happen. Winter rains not arriving and then snow coming in spring (when flowering should be taking place), followed immediately by intense heat announcing itself a month earlier than it usually does (and staying around twice as long), have had a straining effect on the olives this year.

Heavy winter rains also meant lots of undergrowth developed in the predominantly pine forests, which acted as kindling for summer fires – a problem that Netien says can be mitigated by more sophisticated agroforestry projects, using ancient oak and cedar species (rather than pyrophytic pine trees) interspersed with other species, controlled animal grazing and recreational human activities.

Netien is currently involved with various larger-scale, multi-party projects across Cyprus, aimed at pushing the island’s land management and food production systems towards a more sophisticated, sustainable direction.

“What we really need is a cultural change,” he says. “We need to put food production back at the centre of society, where it belongs. We have an outdated view on farming. We think it has to be difficult, but it doesn’t. We are not breaking our backs – it’s not the Middle Ages. We have technology we can use. We have modern systems.”

However, as in many other countries, young people in Cyprus are turning away from agriculture towards more attractive or prosperous careers in the city, while the older generations – who have traditionally cared for the trees and worked the land – move on.

“Fifty-one per cent of land in Cyprus is in ‘critical danger of desertification’ due primarily to man-made actions, according to the UN; and 80% of farm holdings are run by people aged over 65. So, we have a big demographic problem looming,” says Netien. “What really drives people like me insane though – literally – is that we already have the solutions: we know how we can do it, and we have the tools. We just need the willpower.“

There aren’t many job opportunities for young Cypriots, like Anastasia, in rural areas like this. Cultural and family traditions are disappearing as older generations pass on. The olive oil produced at Atsas is different from traditional Cypriot olive oil, too – Atsas sells most of its high-end oil as a nutraceutical nutritional supplement on the international market. In the UK, for example, a 100 ml bottle of their high-phenolic oil fetches £23 online. They also bottle and package more ‘table’ olive oil (which is still very high in polyphenols) for both export and local Cypriot markets.

“For me,” says Anastasia, wrinkling her face at the taste of that world-leading, USD$300-per-litre oil she has just tasted, while guiding me through the different products, “I prefer the other one, the local one. It is more smooth, more…tasty. But for the last three years, I have been trying to get used to this one.”

‘Getting used to it’ is perhaps an appropriate term. Producing olive oil for a global export market may not feel totally in line with maintaining local culture and heritage…but in some ways it might be.

If nothing else, it certainly gives hope to the idea that other young people like Anastasia can be inspired to have an exciting, fulfilling life in farming. It also speaks to the possibility that we may need to look both outwards and inwards in order to find the best and most sustainable solutions – not only in Cyprus, but beyond.

 

Photos courtesy of Nicolas Netien and Anastasia Panteli.

If you have any kind of garden, it’s worth putting in an apple tree (or two or three, or even four, perhaps more?) A friend of ours has a small garden with a small apple tree that is dripping with beautiful apples that are just about ready to eat – every time I visit at this time of year, I am amazed by its productivity.

Apples have been grown in the UK since Roman times and the British over centuries have cultivated an extraordinarily diverse range of them – there are as many as 2,500 varietals. But despite this diversity, it can be hard to get your hands on the vast majority of British apples. UK supermarkets largely carry only the most popular apples – Pink Lady, Braeburn, Gala and Jazz – and these are not British apples. The Cox Orange Pippin, which was once the dominant British favourite, has been in decline for years now. Apples played an important role in Britain’s cultural heritage, and the Victorians, in particular, took their cultivation seriously and turned it into something of an artform, generating hundreds of new varietals.

Luckily, there are still many heritage orchards producing British apples and it is well worth seeking them out. The distinctiveness of their diversity is myriad.

Blackberries

While apples are a wonderful fruit on their own, when they meet the other autumn wonder, the blackberry, it’s a match made in heaven. There’s nothing better than a simple crumble with a dollop of double cream (or, even better, custard!), the slight tartness of the blackberry married with whatever apple you have on hand. While Bramley is long favoured as the go-to apple for crumble, I much prefer a crunchier apple that still has some texture and bite after cooking. I like to mix different apples in a crumble, each bringing something slightly different to the dish, creating a more complex flavour profile. The blackberry brings its own profile which depends on where you have picked it. Finding the juiciest and sweetest is always a triumph, but you will inevitably eat an array of them in your search for the tastiest, running from the tartest and pipiest to the most gorgeous and gooiest.

It’s wise to get going early in blackberry season and pick as many as you can and freeze them; their peak passes quickly and you want the best of them to carry you through to the following September. If you are diligent, you might have enough for blackberry jelly into the depths of winter or if a fanatic, you could pick enough to last until spring.

Wild Plums

Wild plums (which are really feral plums that have broken free from their cultivars) are one of the great treats of autumn, though infuriatingly hard to get to sometimes, and their branches are laced with some unpleasant barbs. They tend to be tarter in flavour than cultivated plums but when at their best, they have a distinctive tangy flavour (especially in the skin) and, like the blackberry, the sweetness level varies. They are smaller than cultivated plums but their ‘wildness’ gives such variation to its flavour that there is lots that you can do with them beyond just jam: savoury chutneys are great and they work well with both duck and pork –  try roasting them with a little balsamic vinegar and a bit of brown sugar.

Hawthorn Berries

The Hawthorn tree is one of Britain’s most common trees – it grows widely across the country and is heralded for its medicinal and restorative properties. In autumn, it produces beautiful bright red berries that can be made into the most unique and tasty ‘ketchup’ that I’ve encountered. The berries ripen around October/November and while they aren’t something you want to pick and eat (they have a dry-ness that’s, well, less than yummy), when cooked the ‘haws’ soften, and you can take the pits out. There are many good recipes about, so find one you like and give it a try.

Beans

When the lovely summer French beans finish, the Runner bean begins to flourish. Of course, eating them fresh requires a bit of tidying up with a knife to remove the stringy edges, but they have their own distinct pleasures, especially early in the autumn before they find their way into canning jars across Wales, where they are much prized. They are great in chutneys – courgette and runner bean chutney is a family favourite in our household.

While beans are undoubtedly delicious fresh, they are overlooked by many when dried – the best way to keep them. But it’s easy to be deterred by the need to boil them for an extended period of time. The Spanish, who are connoisseurs of beans, cook them every way possible, but jarred is, supposedly, the most delectable.

If you don’t have access to fresh homegrown pulses, there are some great sustainable options being grown here in the UK – like fava beans or the humble but hearty carlin pea, which is available dried from British pulse producers, Hodmedods (or if you’re looking for something that doesn’t need soaking there’s a jarred version due to be launched this week by the Bold Bean Co.) Pulses should really be a part of every diet, they are so rich in nutrients and whether dried, jarred or canned they will carry you through the year.

 

And now, some recipes for you to try using some of these autumnal crops…

Apple Crumble with Different Apples and Apple Blackberry Crumble – variations on a theme

Topping:

• 1 cup plain flour
• ½ cup sugar (white sugar or white sugar and light brown sugar mixed)
• ¼ tsp salt
• 3 oz butter, chilled
• optional hazelnuts, chopped roughly

 

Fruit:

• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 2 Tbsp plain flour
• bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to taste – don’t overwhelm
• about of kilo or a bit more of different apples or however many looks right in your dish
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice

 

1. Peel the apples, take the core out and slice them (not too thinly); put the apple slices in the dish and add the sugar, plain flour, lemon juice and spices and gently mix them all together. Let sit for about 15 minutes.
2. For the topping, mix the flour, sugar, salt and then cut in the butter and use your fingers to break down the butter until it’s well mixed into the flour – no lumps. A food processor can do this as well, mixing it all together in under a minute.
3. Spread topping lightly across the crumble, evenly. Try not to compact the topping.
4. Cook low in the oven at 200 degrees for about an hour – turn the oven down to 180 degrees if it looks like the top is browning too much or cover with a bit of baking parchment.

 

For an Apple Blackberry Crumble follow the above recipe but cut the number of apples and increase the blackberries – include some tarter blackberries as well as the sweet ones, so the sweetness doesn’t overwhelm.

Definitely have either double cream, custard or creme fraiche on the side.

 

Pumpkin and Carlin Pea Spiced Dhal

Recipe courtesy of the Bold Bean Co.

• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 knob of ginger, grated
• 750g pumpkin or squash, peeled and chopped into medium chunks
• 1 x 700g jar of Bold Bean Co ‘Queen Carlin Peas’ with their bean stock (or 2 x 400g tins Hodmedod’s ‘Carlin Peas in Water’ with 250ml vegetable stock)
• 1 Tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 Tbsp curry powder
• 1½ tsp turmeric
• 250g split red lentils
• 1 x 400g can of full fat coconut milk
• 700ml vegetable or chicken stock
• juice of ½ lime

 

Accoutrements:

• greek yoghurt
• 1 small bunch of fresh coriander, leaves roughly chopped
• lime wedges
• nigella or sunflower seeds
• mango chutney (optional)
• naan or rice (optional)

 

1. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat and add the onions with a pinch of salt. Once the onions are slightly browned (roughly 7-8 minutes), add the ginger and garlic and cook for a further 2 minutes.
2. Add the cumin, curry powder and turmeric with the chunks of pumpkin and red lentils. Toss the lentils and pumpkin to coat in the spices.
3. Add the jar of ‘Queen Carlin Peas’ with their bean stock, the coconut milk and veg stock (you can also use canned ‘Carlin Peas in Water’ but rinse and drain them). Cover and simmer the dhal for 30-40 minutes, until it becomes thick and starchy and the pumpkin is soft, stirring every so often to stop the lentils from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add water if it becomes too dry.
4. Once the dhal is nearly cooked, squeeze in the lime juice and check for seasoning.
5. Spoon the dhal into bowls. Top with a dollop of yoghurt, fresh coriander and a squeeze of lime. Add some mango chutney for sweetness, if you like.
6. Serve with rice or naan for something heartier.

Typical horticultural plots outside Miras, Korçë region

 

The decline of Albanian landraces

The impact of a market economy and depopulation, both as a result of a movement to urban centres, emigration and the general disinclination of young people to work in agriculture, has had a devastating effect on landraces in Albania.

Until 1990, the system of collective farms in a country that had been able to utilise its abundant water to irrigate most farmland, meant Albania was self-sufficient in food. Collective farms grew local varieties and saved the seed of landraces that flourished in the varied growing environments across the country.

The reallocation of collective farms meant that thousands of families were given land to cultivate themselves. Today, the average holding is 1.4 hectares (less than 2 acres), and just over 40% of the population of around 3 million, work in agriculture – Albania’s primary economic sector. The country continues to grow nearly everything it needs, and the public has a preference to eat locally grown fruit and vegetables.

Shaban and Rajmona Zerani planting landrace bean Tenare

 

As in so many other countries I have visited, where agriculture was built on a system of small farms growing local varieties and saving and sharing seed, changes in practice driven by the introduction of modern hybrid cultivars, has resulted in the collapse of varietal diversity. This has happened because once a farmer stops growing and saving seeds of the local varieties and grows only modern cultivars, the traditional varieties are abandoned, disposed of or simply fed to the animals. In just one season unique landraces can be lost for ever. Albania is no different.

Changing practices

In the last 30 years, Albania has moved from growing exclusively local varieties of arable crops, specifically cereals and maize, to importing 80% of its seed. The great diversity of open-pollinated varieties of maize are now lost – bar a handful in mountainous regions. In the 1970s, Albania bred a variety of wheat named after the largest mountain outside Tirana: Dajti. It is highly valued as a bread wheat and remains under widespread cultivation in the mountains. But now, wheat is predominantly grown from imported modern cultivars to satisfy the changing tastes of consumers, who are eating more processed foods. Cereal cultivation is not as profitable as fruit and vegetables and fodder crops are increasingly replacing cereals to support growing demand from consumers for more meat and dairy.

Typical wildflower meadows being grazed in southern Albania

 

Outside the major cities, fresh fruit and vegetables still make up a significant proportion of the diet, and local varieties continue to retain a foothold, although their future is uncertain. In 1990, 23 vegetable crops, all local varieties and almost exclusively landraces, were grown in the low and coastal regions. Today this has increased to 38 different vegetable crops, but the majority of these are hybrid cultivars. The reasons for Albanian farmers making this switch is understandable – modern cultivars offer greater yields and lower production costs due to scale and better storage. Sadly, growers and distributors are paying less attention to the things that matter to consumers: provenance and taste. Albania is in danger of making the same mistakes as many other countries by neglecting, abandoning even, its indigenous food culture where farmers are treated with the same respect as doctors and teachers.

Greater diversity of output with modern cultivars is good insofar as it helps to reinforce the agricultural economy but when the price is loss of local genetic diversity and the cultural and social links Albanians have with their food, it can spell disaster, risking the security of its food supply; historically, locally adapted crops have ensured resilience and reliable harvests in the face of adverse weather and are on the frontline of providing continuing adaptability with climate change.

Transforming the food system

To spend time in Albania’s capital, Tirana, sussing out the markets and seemingly endless number of greengrocers – every street has at least one – is to find oneself in a city of a million people where 80% of all fresh produce is grown within a few kilometres of the centre. Although processed foods are gaining ground, urban Albanians remain deeply connected to the land. They nearly all have immediate family who continue to farm and there is a tradition of buying food from friends and farmers in one’s home village. But most of the produce on sale, although grown locally, is now from imported hybrid seed. There are no official statistics, but Lavdosh told me that empirical evidence suggests well over 90% of all fresh food goes directly from farmer to consumer, but wholesalers and middlemen are playing an increasingly larger role in distribution as the urban population increases. I came away from Tirana asking myself, if a city of this size can feed itself primarily from local produce including meat, dairy and eggs, why can’t other cities do the same? Despite huge transformation over the last 30 years and threats to its future, Albania’s food economy is still a living demonstration of localisation in action.

Plants for sale in Tirana market

 

In Korçë and its surrounding villages, change is happening much more slowly, thank goodness. There, the greengrocers sold only locally grown goods. I was particularly interested to see which landraces were being maintained and how they underpinned the region’s food culture. I am a great lover of beans and wherever I dined I just had to eat the local delicacy: lima beans with tomatoes, a dish where the beans have the lightest of sauces brushed over them. I suspected that the ‘lima’ bean on offer was almost certainly a type of runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus), because in neighbouring Greece a prized local variety of white seeded runner bean called ‘gigantes’ is intrinsic to Greek cuisine.

The fields of Miras have been continuously farmed since Roman times and there is archaeological evidence of agriculture dating back 4,500 years. There is a very long tradition of saving seed and selecting for favourable traits throughout Albania, but the Korçë district is the last stronghold. The loss of locally adapted landraces with enduring historical and cultural significance varies from village to village. In some cases, there has been a 75-80% loss in the last thirty years. In other localities, at least half the genetic diversity has been lost in the same timeframe. The biggest loss has been with maize, mostly replaced with modern hybrid cultivars.

Yet, unique and important varieties survive. The Albanians like their popcorn, and two wonderful landraces that can be grown without irrigation are the much prized, Korçë black popcorn and Moscow red popcorn, also known as hooked red popcorn. A sweetcorn that also grows without irrigation and named after the lake to the north of Korçë, is Prespë. Bean landraces continue to flourish as do capsicums, tomatoes, leeks, onions and squash, with lettuce, orache (Atriplex hortensis), and white cabbage less common. Albania is also home to an enormous diversity of local varieties of apples, pears, stone fruit and grapes – it has the oldest tradition of viticulture in Europe and the wines are a revelation!

Saving a seed and a culture

Onions and leeks being grown out for seed

 

The reality is that the decline in these precious landraces will, over the medium to long term, have a hugely negative impact on localised self-sufficient food systems. It is the genetic diversity of these landraces that ensures farmers retain control over their unique genetic resources and are able, through selection, to continuously reinforce food security and resilience. Crucially too, these landraces are a vital tool for plant breeders developing and improving cultivars in our changing and ever more extreme climate. I believe there is an urgent need within Albania to focus on participatory breeding with farmers to improve seed quality and strengthen traits that can flourish in our changing climate. Academic and cultural links between European educational and agricultural research institutions would be hugely beneficial, not only to Albania but to all those who come to work and learn there. Restoring plant breeding and seed production should be more than an aspiration. The alternative – depending on genetically narrow and supposedly ‘one size fits all’ hybrid cultivars bred and controlled by agri-business to feed us – doesn’t, in my view, bear thinking about.

Despite the decline in traditional, sustainable and regenerative farming across Albania, there are signs of new shoots. Tourism will be a key economic driver and agri-tourism is seen as a vital tool in restoring economic fortunes in the deeply rural areas, encouraging a new generation of more entrepreneurial young farmers. Celebrating Albania’s remarkable food culture, promoting and expanding its deep history of herbal medicine, and its incredible diversity of flora – Albania is home to 4,000 currently identified flora, 1,500 of which are found in the Korçë District alone – will have a transformative effect. Albanians only need to look at the damaging impact of industrial farming around the world for affirmation of why its own food and farming system needs to be nourished. We have much to learn from Albania about the challenges and benefits of securing and maintaining a thriving local food system.

 

Photos courtesy of Adam Alexander.