30.09.2024 - Binissaida
Have you ever stepped on land worked with regenerative practices? You will surely find more "bugs," more vegetation, more life. Because these practices are nothing more than techniques that restore health to the soil. We tell you how.
Regenerative agriculture is becoming increasingly popular, although, in reality, it is largely about recovering very traditional ways of doing things. From The Regen Foods, who are in charge of directing the activities on our farm, they define it as "a new way of producing food that mitigates the environmental, social, and economic crisis that the planet is experiencing through practices that restore lost soils, capture atmospheric carbon, and provide nutritious food and a fair livelihood for farmers."
Thus, along with the organic certification, we strive to recover those roots of our land to give it a better future.
How do we implement regenerative agriculture? We share the practices we apply on our farm.
The land is not plowed; instead, a cover crop is allowed to grow, fulfilling very specific functions. A cover crop is like the skin of the soil, helping to maintain the good health of the land by protecting it from ultraviolet rays, wind, or torrential rains. Thus, we also prevent degradation. A cover crop is basically allowing vegetation to grow spontaneously or even sowing some species with specific functions based on what we want to achieve from it. For example, if there are bee hives, as is the case in Sant Joan de Binissaida, flowering plants are sown. For these cover crops to be fully effective, they must have a balance between three families of plants: grasses, crucifers, and legumes.
No agrochemicals are used, that is, organic products for treatments on the farm. In fact, no action is taken unless the pest is at the limit of becoming a problem for the farm and production.
Preventive measures are important, and we use them systematically to protect the crop. In this sense, we have already mentioned kaolin, a natural white clay with which olive trees are painted. It is a product that is actually used to combat xylella, but it also works very well against the olive fly and prevents the appearance of fungi that are very common in olive trees. In some way, it is like whitewashing a house, because it also helps to protect the tree from heat and prevent water stress during the summer.
In this way, we maintain the farm in optimal conditions, acting in each season and adapting to the climate at any given moment with the recovery of our soil at the center of our efforts.