Closing the loop: Animal and vegetable farming can still be combined – a Galician lighthouse farm
Somewhere between A Coruña and Santiago, in the deep green heart of Galicia, there is a farm that keeps its nutrient cycles impressively closed and follows quite remarkable practices for soil health. I had the task to go there to choose, together with Victor, the farmer, suitable soil sampling sites for an EU-funded project assessing soil biology and provided ecosystem services. When I arrived, Marta, Victor’s wife, could not greet me by kissing me hello in the Spanish way because she was in the weekly slaughter process of the chickens. Victor was just finishing the yogurt processing, covering the fermenting milk with his winter coat to keep it warm. His quick tour through the farm showed me an impressive mix of cultivated vegetables, fruits, forests, and animals with some 20 or 30 turkeys, 5 goats, and 11 pigs.
Wow, and what impressive queen pigs they are. It has been a while since I have seen such healthy, happy free-roaming pigs. They live on 2 meters of food and plant residues with a never-ending possibility to roam and sniff more food in deeper layers. Fascinated by their social hierarchies at play when they are fed or when the water source is shoveled free to allow access to water again – I could watch them for hours. No normal farm kitchen can lead into those heaps of residues, though… I learned that Victor and Marta set up a local food-waste-collection system collaborating with the local supermarkets and the town’s restaurants. The farmers distributed them bins. Three times a week, the farmers collect the food waste and exchange them with empty, cleaned buckets.
The pig manure is only found on one side of the barn since pigs like to keep their barn clean, which is not the case in modern pig farms with no space, harming the animals’ instincts. The manure gets carried by the tractor to the covered compost heap. After several months of composting, it provides the base for new plants, distributed on a layer of cardboard to prevent unwanted herbs in the beets. On top of the compost, shredded wood pieces are distributed as mulching.
This embedding is welcomed and embraced by most vegetables. They get a great base layer of nutrients, such as minerals, from the farm. But most nutrients are indirectly provided by microorganisms in the compost, feeding the soil organisms. The microbiome in the compost also adds more diversity to the soil, mostly in the short term and sometimes also over the long term.
Vegetables are harvested once a week for the vegetable box that is distributed in A Coruña. There, it’s a cooperative that sells Marta’s and Victor’s products. Another client is the km zero restaurant on the Camino de Santiago. While all those customers know and trust the farmers, they decided not to go through the certification process. Organic certification is particularly impossible for mixed smallholders from a cost perspective.
The concept of welcome farms
The farmers call their farm a welcome farm, welcoming people who are looking to work on farms, but also support those who want to start their own farm or take over one. The farmers share their knowledge on agricultural practices and also provide access to machines that are particularly hard to access in the beginning stages of setting up a farm. Since the farmer couple has no children of their own, they see it as a generational task to teach new generations of farmers. This concept is super important, as even farmers with children struggle to find successors for their farms since their descendants do not necessarily wish to pursue the same career and continue the farm business. Victor says that this concept is crucial to counteract the emptying of rural areas; new concepts with motivated people running farm businesses are needed.
An example of recipients is a small Belgian family that moved to the area 2 years ago to set up an organic vegetable/fruit farm a few kilometers away. When needed, Victor and Marta help them with advice or lend them the mulching machine. Also, one of the pigs now lives at their farm, responsible for breaking down food residues (fed the Galician way with Zaburinas). The child was picking a strawberry for me between the onions (left picture). It’s fascinating to see the kids growing up on the farm and being so in tune with plants, for example, by knowing how to handle thorns while walking on this overgrown path.
People interested in learning about farming are welcome to stay there while helping with the daily procedures. The farm also welcomes volunteers aiming to escape daily life. For instance, I met a young couple from Barcelona there. While he is finishing his Master’s degree and feeling a little lost in life, she is working in a bank. It was impressive to see the fascination of both for farm life—the fascination for good, home-produced, and home-cooked food, the sense of community in this patchwork community, being so close to the animals, and following certain daily routine-like tasks.
What else happened
While there, a turkey went for a little swim. Also, Marta harvested some oyster mushrooms from an inoculated wood stem at the farm.
Additionally, we came across some beautiful chanterelles in a chestnut forest close to the farm, which turned into a delicious lunch. Not so edible but nice to look at were some pulpo/octopus mushrooms that crossed our path.
Unfortunately, a goat died and we needed to bury it. The excavated hole for her was a bit too perfect, revealing soil horizons, so we decided to conduct a soil horizon analysis. Thanks, goat, may you rest in peace!
And lastly, but certainly not least, a little Galician fiesta cannot be missed. There is something about the unbreakable motivation of people dancing in the rain to some horrible music performed by this terrible band in pink.
