WWOOF at Collegara (EN)

Risultati immagini per wwoof marchio

Wwoof voluntary work in a little organic farm like this one, means for me on one side to offer my guests the possibility of a rural work, life and culture experience, on the other side to receive an aware and committed help into the different activities which are necessary to run the farm, exchanging meals and accommodation.

I ask my guests 5 or 6 hours a day of real work, for 6 or 5 days a week, in the morning or/and afternoon, according to individual  agreement with each one, depending on particular needs, request or ability.

I can’t pretend specific competence in farming and hand work, just responsibility, willingness and commitment from the guest, productive of results too. Moreover, especially if guest is inexperienced, he  had to follow methods and instructions that I can give him, before putting hand in the complex living organism that’s this farm, which has its own natural rules, dynamics, time and cycles, and that is compound of plants and animals to which we owe respect and care. We are working in cooperation with the perennial energy of  a permanent creation, as guardian of the natural heritage that our ancestors gave us and that we have to give to the new generation, intact or even better, for their possible and sustainable future.

As on one side I’m very glad to exchange ideas and competences,  on the other as well I try to give as best my knowledge about agro-ecology, as I learned from my experience, study and research, not last from my tradition and family culture, from my contact in the past with the old farmers world that is nowadays disappeared because of urban and industrial development and global market economy.

In fact, I’m a native farmer, but I did different experiences too, I traveled and lived abroad, I had children, and this little farm is more a spiritual than a material heritage for me, from my farmer ancestors, who bought this land more than one century ago. Originally it was a bigger estate, close to the river, where other farmers and workers were living and work with us, at the time of the so called “ Farmer’s Civilization”. In my childhood the countryside was still populated of farmers, there were thriving farms with stables and cattle all over, poultry, dairy farms, permanent meadows and pasture, little field cultivated with grain, grass and vegetables, with rows of trees and grapes on the sides, every sort of fruits, hedges. The river still had most of its gravels and sand, clear water and springs, plenty of different kinds of fish. After the ’70, all this deeply changed, rural landscape as well as the quality of life and environment, following a progressive and unappeasable degradation.

Nowadays, the aim of this little farm project concern on one side to produce for self consumption and income from selling to the local market, on the other to create and maintain a nucleus of cultivated ecosystem, renewable and sustainable, according to historical models of farm (classic, traditional) integrated with current vision of living organism, as from biodynamic and organic principle as well as partly inspired by Permaculture.

Since October 2015 there are two wonderful young female calves of Bianca Modenese, that’s an old local race under extinction, Radha and Flora are  their names. The cattle is necessary to make the farm self sufficient as a renewable and perennial cycle of a cultivated ecosystem, according to the principles of food chain (pasture and decomposers chains). Manure  is replaced too by exchanging it with our grass with a near farm. I use biodynamic horn-manure too and effective microorganisms sometimes, moreover green manure.

I presume that people who are coming here are aware of the fact that survival is quite difficult for a little farm like this one, that needs of support and cooperation by volunteers, as the size and income doesn’t allow to hire workers. It’s not an industrial agro-chemical farm to produce monoculture for profit at all, but a little organic farm where to produce different cultivations of veggies and old varieties  of fruit; moreover there are different species of bushes and trees, permanent meadows with different sort of grass, to host and to protect every kind of wild fauna: I firmly think that this ecological function is useful for a territory and its community, but it is not properly evaluated  by this nowadays economy and culture based on speculative profit.

More Practical Information

Two double bedrooms are available for guests, moreover an old but comfortable camper van near the house. There are two bathrooms, the kitchen, a living room with a library.

Meal preparation and consumption are shared. It is mainly vegetarian with our products, moreover with other food (pasta, bread, dairy, eggs and sometimes some meat too organic as much is possible) part of which we can buy at the organic farmer’s market, on Friday afternoon, when usually I go there to sell my veggies.

Guests are asked to share home cleaning too, to keep  rooms and bathrooms cleaned and to respect the order in the home and the farm, that means to put everything is used back to its place, kitchen stuffs as well as books and work tools.

During the hot season we usually work from the early morning, because of the better temperature, then we do a long break up the half afternoon, working up to the evening before darkness. Even if we have to keep full working time to run the farm properly, guests are not asked anyway to work more than their scheduled time, in the morning or/and in the afternoon, according to a taken agreement.

At the farm border there is a walking and cycling path which runs all along the river for kilometers in both directions, crossing natural protected areas.

From  here is possible to see the highest range of the Appennino Alps, which are about 70 km far: there is a natural park there with trekking paths.

The old city centre of Modena is about 8 km far from the closest village, San Damaso (1,5 km far), where there is a supermarket and the bus stand to reach the city or to get here.

The closest highway exit is Modena Sud, about 4 km far from here.

All around, from the plain to the mountains, there are several different towns, which keep artistic and cultural heritages, moreover the tradition of our local best food,  organic too, like Parmesan cheese, balsamic vinegar, tortellini, tipical cold cut, Lambrusco wine.

While committed volunteers are very welcome, even if inexperienced, we don’t like people who are using this opportunity on organic farms for their personal different aims, people who are not really interested on agriculture and rural life rather to make a cheap holiday, people who doesn’t really help in the work because they have mainly to go around as tourist or just to have fun, people who are making troubles to us and the other guest, drug addict or alcoholic and so on, as unfortunately it can happen too. All this kind of people, before or after, is gently or less asked to go away.

My address, email, telephone number are in the wwoof farm list, guest are asked to be member of the association: www.wwoof.it

 

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