Soil is Life: Inspiration from a beautiful Italian Regenerative Farm in transition
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Soil sustains all life on our planet. And yet, for decades, industrial farming practices have degraded and depleted the soil we depend on. It’s time for a change – and farmers like Matteo Mazzola and Paola Archetti are leading the way.
In this video, part 2 of the Soil is life series, Matteo Mazzola and Paola Archetti explain how they are building a probiotic agroecosystem above and below the ground on their farm overlooking Lago d’Iseo. By using compost, incorporating grazing animals and following intelligent agroforestry design principles, they have dramatically increased the soil’s microbial activity. Thanks to the abundance of beneficial microorganisms, the farm’s immune system has improved, making the plants and animals in the agroecosystem more resilient to disease and providing them with all the nutrients they need to thrive and produce healthy food
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The Dehesa is perhaps the Mediterranean’s oldest example of agroforestry, a paradigm of the circular economy where domesticated and wild animals graze on pasture under the shade of oak and cork trees. However, this delicate ecosystem has come under threat from years of neglect and mismanagement. Many of the oak trees are dying from disease and the pastureland has lost its fertility and in some cases all of its topsoil. The good news is that a handful of estates such as Vivencia Dehesa in Southwestern Iberia are demonstrating how regenerative management practices can bring a degraded landscape back to life. Agriculture and nature are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, a holistically managed agroforestry system comprised of trees, pasture and livestock is much greater than the sum of its part
