From the obvious disasters of agribusiness to the extraordinary productivity of people and environmentally friendly little farms

There are hundreds of ways of doing agriculture and many different facets, but generally speaking we can divide agriculture into two broad categories. The first category is industrial agriculture, characterized by a constant research to replace the natural systems that regulate the earth’s cycles with artificial systems that, in theory, should help achieving better results for humans. The second category, which could be defined as natural agriculture, seeks to understand the cycles of the earth more fully in order to imitate and benefit from them. It is an agriculture that requires much more knowledge and manual labour and is oriented towards self-sufficiency and territoriality.

Let’s become the solutions to our problems!

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. – HENRY DAVID THOREAU

A green, flowery and unpolluted Eden where people work less and live better: here’s how to make it happen.

Romagna, September 21st 2025

Dear Friends, this year I decided to spend my usual month of travel in Romagna. Yes, I know, you will wonder why travelling so close from home since I have accustomed you to my tales from Patagonia, New Zealand, Indonesia…
This time I didn’t take any plane to visit this wonderful land, because the change it has experienced in recent years has been extraordinary and has made it the most ideal place in the world to regenerate and deal with a new mentality, which focuses on life.

Health and vitality depend on direct contact with nature: it is the biophilia effect

Many computer scientists I met have revealed to me that their secret dream would be to work with the earth or doing something that makes them spend time in close contact with nature. Spending many hours indoors in front of a computer studying codes leads them to alienation. They see in rural life their chance to rebirth, the possibility of a more balanced, fulfilling, and happy existence.
Erich Fromm – a famous psychotherapist and philosopher who lived in the mid-twentieth century – called the irresistible and indispensable attraction of man towards nature “biophilia”.
Something similar also happens to astronauts in space who spend the few free moments they have during the day staring at the Earth due to the natural attraction that the Blue Planet exerts towards them. Their perception, called “The Overview Effect”, is that of staring at a ball full of life.

I want to give the floor to a person who, in everyday life, strives to bring freedom into his life and into the lives of those who live around him. This is an interview to Francesco Angelo Rosso, born in 1985 and one of the youngest entrepreneurs in Romagna.
Life has led him to live personal and work experiences in search for freedom, true freedom. The kind of freedom that is not without rules but can also be experienced without rules, that becomes freedom when it is linked to self-sufficiency. – By the editorial staff of Vivi Consapevole in Romagna.

Do you feel free?

Unfortunately not. I continually realise I rely on patterns, conditionings and rules that imprison me. And I realise it even more after feeling free for a few days.

Human beings, like the earth, need balance and biodiversity to live fully and achieve the best of themselves

Most of the life forms on Earth are experiencing a phase of constant weakening and, among these, human being is certainly the one who is suffering the most, even if we are not often aware of it. People who live in Western countries are constantly and chronically ill, both physically and mentally, but most of time they don’t realize it. Medicines developed by drug multinationals relieve symptoms, reduce pain and keep sick people alive for a long time. The prestige of modern medicine is often based on the statistics of reduction of mortality and diseases after the industrialization of a country, but these numbers are mainly due to the increase of quality of life and diet and the adoption of elementary measures of hygiene. Sewage systems, clean and sanitized water, having 3 meals a day and washing dishes have had a much greater influence on improving health and life expectancy than the complex methods of specialist care.

Since 2010 we have planted at the Farm several thousands of plants including bushes, fruit trees, flowers, vegetables, etc.

Let’s see in details which are the main fruit plants at La Fattoria dell’Autosufficienza…

During the course on How to create an eco-friendly vegetable garden with Sergio Abram (April 2011) we decided to spare 3 vegetable beds for growing potatoes (Kennebeq variety).

After preparing the ground and building the bed, we planted the potatoes and covered them with a little of straw. Potatoes don’t need to be covered with ground, instead they need darkness. The distance among potatoes was 40-50 cm and the bed had an irrigation system that provides water during the whole growing phase. Potatoes don’t need any care, or at least that’s what we thought.